Jules Ainaud’s Catalunya

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Image courtesy of KBr Mapfre.

It is now over 150 years since Jules Ainaud's photographs, taken in Catalunya between 1871 and 1872, were exhibited for the first and only time at the Ateneo Barcelonés. Like the pictures of the Levante, this interesting set of images was long considered to be the work of Jean Laurent.

Jules Ainaud’s Catalunya (1871-1872) is the first public presentation that restores his legitimate authorship and highlights his contribution to the history of Catalan photography.

The firm J. Laurent & Cía, for which Ainaud worked, was founded in Madrid in 1856 by the Frenchman Juan Laurent. The company is a prime example of the appearance and development of companies in Spain aimed at satisfying the increasingly intense demand for photographic images, initially of private portraits, but soon also of reproductions of works of art, landscapes and views of cities and monuments.

This exhibition brings together around 100 period prints on albumen paper from wet collodion glass negatives and is completed by 14 stereoscopic views and 13 reproductions of the glass plate negatives of these views, which allow the richness of the image details to be appreciated in comparison with the works on paper. All the prints were included in the catalogues that the Laurent company used to market them between 1872 and 1879.

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