View of the City of Girona. Catalonia

Date: 1842

Archive: Municipal Archive of Girona

Document type: Produccions Artístiques

Reference code: CAT-CRDI-69-531757

Link to the online document

Description: This engraving of the city of Girona, created using the etching technique and retouched with burin by the engraver Antoni Roca (1813/1814–1864), is of special interest because of its relationship with the daguerreotype, the first photographic procedure that was presented at the Paris Academy of Sciences on January 7, 1839. The image of the engraving is a reproduction of the original photographic image captured with the technique of daguerreotype This is attributed to the photographer and engraver Ramon Alabern (1811–1888), who was responsible for the first photograph taken in Spain on November 10, 1839, in Barcelona. The translation of the image into the engraving was a common occurrence at a time when the mechanical reproduction of photographic images was not yet possible.
The publication of this image, in 1842, sets precedents far back in the history of photography in the city, because the activity did not really take root until the sixties. This image was published in Francesc Pi and Margall España’s book picturesque work. Catalonia (1842). This photograph, together with another from the same publication, are the only known exterior daguerreotype images of the city, where contact with this technique was scarce.
This document is significant in Europe as a sample of the technique of reproducing photographic images at the time of the daguerreotype, a period in which the dissemination of the photographic image was done through engraving techniques and according to the aesthetic canons of the time. These reproductions played an important role in the dissemination of photography and in its integration into the art and visual communication of the time.

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