Photography in the Service of the Aristocracy: The Visual Representation of the Buquoy Estate under Georg Johann Heinrich Buquoy in the Mid-19th Century

• Published in: Umění 2011-01, Vol.59 (2), p.145-160
• Main Author: Trnková, Petra
• Format: Article
• Language: cze
• ISSN: 0049-5123

This study looks at the work of three photographers who in the 1850s and 1860s systematically photographed the Buquoy estate in Rozmberk nad Vltavou (Rosenberg) and in Nové Hrady (Gratzen). The photographs were commissioned by the main representative of the family, Georg Johann Heinrich Buquoy. The work of all three photographers - Andreas Groll, Paul des Granges, and Franz Polak - not only reflects the specifics of their time and the possibilities open to the photographers and captures the gradual transformation of the architecture on the estate and the surrounding landscape, but also evokes questions about the relationship between the photographer and the estate's owner. This study, based primarily on research on material from the photography collection of the Documentation Department of the Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, describes the circumstances in which these photographic collections were created. It also draws attention to the close connection between them and series of paintings from Rozmberk and Nové Hrady published in the past. (Author abstract)