A singular viagem do fotógrafo Jean Laurent a Portugal, em 1869

Abstract

Jean Laurent, a French photographer established in Madrid, reproduced works of art from major collections in Spain, and undertook an extensive survey of views of places and works of architecture in this country. In late winter and spring of 1869, he visited Portugal, where he photographed the royal family and extended his survey to the entire Iberian Peninsula. He travelled the country mostly by train with his small laboratory car, which he unloaded at each location of his itinerary, to sensitize and develop the images obtained with the wet collodion process. He was probably the first photographer to explore the potential of the railway, recently built in the Iberian Peninsula. His collection of images can be regarded as the most significant among those produced by photographers who globally depicted the Peninsula during the 19th century.