Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)IT was the sort of unprecedented access that you would never get today.
A little-known Welsh photographer, Charles Clifford, got to spend a month touring Andalucía with Spain’s Queen Isabel.
Now in a fabulous exhibition, dozens of the stunning images of the royal sojourn are being put on display in Cordoba.
Clifford, who was born in Wales in 1819 and lived in Madrid from 1850, is considered by many to have been
the greatest 19th century photographer in Spain.
In 1858 he started to work for her majesty Isabel II de Bourbon, travelling with her on her regular journeys around Spain and abroad.
He was even commissioned by Isabel to pay a visit to Windsor Castle to photograph Queen Victoria.
In a brilliant diary entry, the British queen recalled the day writing that she had dressed in evening dress, “with diadem & jewels” to be photographed for Mr Clifford.
She added: “He brought me one of her, taken by him.”
A year later, in 1862 he took the feted Andalucia tour, which has a wide selection of urban landscapes and monuments including the emblematic Alhambra and Mezquita.
The exhibition runs at the Antonio Gala Foundation, in Cordoba until November 5.
I would love to visit the exhibition from two stand points. First, I am interested in early photography and second, I am researching a Scottish family who lived in Malaga from 1842 to 1866. Distance and cost prevent me from travelling from England. Do you have a catalogue illustrating the photographs on display. If so may I buy a copy? Can you tell me what method of photography Clifford was using at that time?
Yours sincerely
Kelso Yuill