BRINGING HERITAGE CLOSER. PHOTOGRAPHY IN NAVARRA. FUNDS AND COLLECTIONS

29 August 2012

Photography in private collections
D. Ignacio Miguéliz Valcarlos. Photographic Fund of the University of Navarra

There are numerous private photography collections in Navarre, as well as works included in general collections, most of them of contemporary art. However, the knowledge and valuation of these collections present a series of difficulties, since, unlike what happens with painting, sculpture or other arts subject , the notion of collecting historical photography is more blurred. This is because we find that many people or families maintain important collections without being aware that they have a photographic collection that can be of great interest for the knowledge of photography as art, especially in the case of those inherited. Thus, in these old images there is evidence of preserving the family's historical report , but it is not assumed that these are artistic pieces of great importance.

Regarding the private photographic collections in Navarre, we can see different variants in terms of their training and even their purpose, as many as personal or institutional approaches may exist, and which are therefore subjective, as occurs in any collecting subject . Thus, and according to the intentionality with which they were gathered, we could divide private collections into multiple variants, such as those created at the dawn of the emergence of the phenomenon of photography collecting, thanks largely to the appearance of the carte de visite and stereoscopy, and which do not pay attention to the photographic technique itself, but to the reflected image, that is, to the icon that is framed in that artifact. Other variants are found in those collections interested in photography as a technique, both as a whole and in relation to a specific one. And we also find collections that gather icons, centered on the image represented by the photograph, or experiences showing in them the memories of events lived by the collector.

Within these private funds existing in Navarre, the photographic collection gathered by the Marquis of the Royal Defense, product of inheritances and family compilations, is of great interest. Although there are gaps in terms of photographic techniques present in it, it is possible to make an evolution of the history of photography from its beginnings, since it includes daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ferrotypes, albumen papers, chemically developed gelatines and dry gelatin-bromide plates, both negative and positive. Typologically, the different carte formats and stereoscopic photography predominate. The subject matter is heterogeneous, with a predominance of portraits, mainly studio portraits, although we can also see photographs of travels, landscapes, urban views and monuments, anthropological, social, etc., not only of the marquises' immediate environment, but also of distant and exotic places that they collected during numerous trips, with the Carlist photography collection standing out for its importance. The list of photographers that make up the collection is very diverse; from all the renowned authors who worked in Navarre in the second half of the 19th century and the following century, to works by Spanish and international photographers, as well as various members of the family, as amateur photographers. All this with a common denominator, all these photographs reflect the life of their owners, both through their family and personal relationships, as well as from the memory of trips and civil and religious events that they starred in or witnessed, from the private to the public.

Mummy of Bishop Arnaldo de Barbazán. Carte de Visite. 1865. Leandro.
Pamplona. Private collection. Bera de Bidasoa

Portrait of group. Ferrotype. Anonymous. c. 1870.
Marquis de la Real Defensa Collection

View of the Cologne Cathedral. Albumen paper. c. 1890. Anonymous.
Collection Marquis of the Royal Defense