19th century family albums: A moment kept in time

Abstract

This article focuses on a collection of original 19th century family photo albums. The main objective is to explore the materiality of four albums and their connections with the families who intended to eternalize their lives portrayed in luxurious bindings for exhibition. On a more specific level, the photographic album is discussed as a valued and desired object in the 19th century, above all, due to its characteristics of preserving memory, legitimizing the family, and bringing together networks of sociability, thus becoming an artifact associated with the act of collecting that was closely related to female attributions. The methodology refers to exploratory and historical-documentary research, which will detail each album, its dating, and the conditions in which the artifact was obtained, as well as its current condition. The results show that, throughout the 20th century, these artifacts were forgotten and found new uses, eventually being sold, or simply discarded as scrap.

Keywords:
Family photographs albums; collecting; Rio de Janeiro; 19th century