1783.cc.20

Green leather bound album measuring 350 x 315 mm, with decorative work in gilt and black on upper board and title as above stamped in gilt; edges gilt. The lower board is stamped in gilt 'G. E. C.' and a handwritten dedication inside the album reads: 'Mrs Edward Haslewood, with cordial regards of George E. Church. London, Sept. 30, 1870.' The album contains 56 uncaptioned albumen print views, mounted on card leaves one to a page (recto only), with contemporary tissue overlays on each print. Inserted at the front of the album is a small printed catalogue listing 98 photographs, entitled, 'Resultat d'une Expédition photographique sur le Solimões ou Alto Amazonas et Rio Negro, faite pour compte de G. Leuzinger, Rue d'Ouvidor 33 et 36, par Mr. A. Frisch, descendant le fleuve dans un bateau avec deux rameurs, depuis Tabatinga jusqu'à Manáos' (Rio de Janeiro, 1869). The corresponding catalogue numbers for prints 1-50 (with the exception of prints 1, 14 and 15) in the album are noted in pencil on the album mounts and captions for these photographs are taken from this source. The remaining prints (51-56) are unconnected with this expedition and form a six-part panoramic view of Athens. Frisch's photographs of the landscapes and Indian inhabitants of the westernmost stretches of the Amazon basin and the Rio Negro, between Manaus and the Colombian border at Tabatinga, are considered to be the first photographic documentation of this area, and are generally dated to around 1865. Little is known of Frisch himself, although a number of these photographs were shown and received an honourable mention at the Paris International Exhibition of 1867. The published date of 1869 for the printed catalogue inserted in the album appears to be misleading in relation to the taking of the photographs. This collection is probably among the most complete surviving sets of Frisch's photographs, a number of which also appear (as copy prints) in Carl Dammann's 'Anthropologisch-Ethnologisches Album' of 1873 (see shelfmark N.Tab 2021/11). For a note on the little that is known of Frisch's career in Brazil, see Pedro Karp Vasquez, 'Fotógrafos Alemães no Brasil do Século XIX. Deutsche Fotografen des 19. Jahrhunderts in Brasilien' (São Paulo, Metalivros, 2000), pp. 81-90.