Photo album of the Alhambra

Laurent, Jean (photographer). Photograph album of Spain.

€ 35.000,00

An exceptional album with fine views of Sevilla (12), Granada (24), including a four-part panorama "Vista panoramica de la Alhambra y de Granada desde la plaza de S. Nicolas" (ca 250 x 1320 mm), Cordoba (2), including a two-part panorama "Vista general de Cordoba" (ca 245 x 660 mm), a three-part panorama of San Sebastian "Vista general panoramica de San Sebastian" (ca. 245 x 1000 mm), Burgos (6), Toledo (10), Cartagena (2), Madrid (3), El Escorial (2), and other sites. "Juan Laurent (b. 1816, d. before 1892), of French origin, moved to Madrid in 1848. His earliest recorded encounter with photography dates from 1856 with the establishment of a studio at Carrera de San Jerónimo in Madrid. Laurent’s large-format camera work is technically more precise than Charles Clifford’s, with great attention to details of architectural accuracy, but like Clifford, his love of the Spanish light, architecture and scenery is apparent. In some of his architectural studies, careful choice of camera position, ideal lighting, and technical excellence combine to produce images which revel in simple geometric patterns, a direct and graphic style which others would adopt only very much later" (Hannavy, p. 829).

Our album boasts 34 views of Western Islamic and Moorish architectural structures and one large folding four-part panorama of the Alhambra and Granada. Furthermore, it contains two examples of photographs on leptographic paper, a collodio-chloride printing paper which was sold ready to use which was perfected by Laurent in collaboration with Martínez-Sánchez in 1866. Two of the small hand-coloured costume photographs bear an embossed imprint in the lower margin, "Leptografia Laurent/Carrera S. Geronimo Madr." As the manufacturers claimed, it had three times the sensitivity of albumen, and exposure times for contact printing could also be reduced significantly. "It is apposite, and perhaps significant, to observe that the majority of the surviving examples of Laurent’s work are printed on albumen paper rather than his own invention" (Hannavy, p. 830).

Extremeties slightly rubbed. A fine album with large format photographs in strong richly toned prints, in a splendid contemporary green morocco binding.