CAMILLE SILVY: 19th Century Modern Life

Adelina Patti as La Somnambula, 1880-1881.
(Patti was a highly acclaimed Opera diva of the time)
Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies, Goddaughter of Queen Victoria, with her husband James Pinson Labulo Davies. September 15, 1862. Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

Camille Silvy with a Boy, August 1859
Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

View of the House, ca 1862
Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

Henry Ker Seymer's Dog, 1860
(HKS was a Member of Parliament for Dorset)
Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

John Robert Townshend, 1st Earl Sydney, 1860
Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

Honore de Balzac, 1862
Photograph (c) National Portrait Gallery, London

CAMILLE SILVY
Photographer of Modern Life: 1834-1910

"Camille Silvy was a pioneer of early photography and one of the greatest French photographers of the nineteenth century. Working under the patronage of Queen Victoria, Silvy photographed royalty, aristocrats and celebrities. He also portrayed uncelebrated people, the professional classes and country gentry, their wives, children and servants. The results offer a unique glimpse into nineteenth-century society through the eyes of one of photography's outstanding innovators.

This exhibition includes many remarkable images which have not been exhibited since the 1860s. The over 100 images, including a large number of carte de visites, focus on a ten-year creative burst from 1857-67 working in Algiers, rural France, Paris and London, and illustrates how Silvy pioneered many now familiar branches of the medium including theatre, fashion and street photography."

The National Portrait Gallery London
July 15-Oct 24, 2010