Metternich’s collection of Talbot’s photographs

Abstract

Abstract The earliest era of photograph collecting in Central Europe is largely unexplored. One of the few pioneering collectors we know about was Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince von Metternich-Winneburg (1773–1859). As this article demonstrates, in the early 1840s he acquired dozens of ‘photogenic drawings’ and calotypes from the inventor W.H.F. Talbot (1800–1877) and incorporated them into his extensive collections at Kynžvart Castle. Most of the series is lost, but drawing on recently recognized evidence and documents – starting with Talbot’s correspondence and period catalogues of the Kynžvart collection and ending with later reproductions and the research interests of the historians and collectors Egon Corti and Erich Stenger – we can form a detailed idea of the origin, form, content and development of the series. We can also better understand Metternich’s interest in photograph collecting and his role in the early development of paper photography in this part of Europe.