Sunday, 25 March 2012

Victoria and Albert – A passion for photography


Royal Albert Memorial Museum Lunchtime Lecture, 21 March 2012

Sophie Gordon, senior curator of photographs at the Royal Collection 'explored how the royal family formed a bond with pioneering British photographers, commissioning and collecting work that survives today in Windsor Castle' quote from the RAMM booklet. Sophia indicated that in the royal collection there were over 450,000 negatives slides and prints from 1842 to the present day.

This hour long talk was a real gem. After the previous two lunchtime lectures that I had attended which had proved to be so disappointing Sophie Gordon was a breath of fresh air. Her whole demeanour was that of a person who enjoyed her work and it came across in her talk. No notes, no hesitation, she talked spontaneously about the images that she projected on the screen and brought them so vividly to life, even including the ones that showed Prince Albert and Queen Victoria on their death beds (separately, of course).

Whilst Queen Victoria liked to collect early private family pictures and portraits of the royal family, Prince Albert focussed his interests on scientific and fine art pictures. The first known image in the collection was one of Prince Albert as a daguerreotype image. The disadvantage of these was that there was only ever one image and it was impossible to copy or duplicate it. Queen Victoria amassed over 20,000 images, negatives and boxes of glass slides, and items are still being unearthed in the cellars of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle where Sophie Gordon is based.

After the disappointing previous talks, this was a real gem and I was glad that I made the effort to attend. Well done RAMM for engaging this excellent speaker who knew her subject thoroughly and who was able to put over her enthusiasm for her subject. Hopefully RAMM will continue the theme of Victorian photography in their next series of lunchtime lectures when the new programme is released shortly.



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