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PHOTOGRAPHY

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHIC FINDINGS

José de San Martín Monument. Buenos Aires. Circa 1880.

Gelatin print toned with sepia. Measurements: 21 x 27.5 cm / 8.26 x 10.82 in. The image, mounted on cardboard, bears a wet stamp that barely touches it with the legend: Published by Ernst Nolte / German Bookstore Buenos - Ayres. Framed work.


We are facing an unusual urban view made on the equestrian monument -the first in the country- of General José de San Martín (1778-1850), a magnificent work in bronze by French sculptor Louis-Joseph Daumas (1801-1887) and inaugurated with great celebrations on July 13, 1862 in the then Plaza de Marte, which currently bears his name in the Retiro neighborhood.


The enormous statue weighing 3.5 tons arrived unarmed at the port of Buenos Aires on April 13, 1862 and was installed on a high white marble base, surrounded by elaborate gates and illuminated by four gas lamps. The monument faces east and is a replica of the one that was located that same year in Santiago de Chile. In the Argentine version, San Martín points the way to his soldiers, as represented in the well-known lithograph by Théodore Gericault.


Photographically this monument was focused on by the pioneering cameras of the Frenchman Esteban Gonnet in 1864 and then by the Italian Benito Panunzi around 1867 approximately, both in silver albumen copies. To our knowledge, this is the only record that shows the statue of our greatest hero, but against the background of the historic building of the Retiro military barracks built in 1800. The same one where José de San Martín trained the brand new regiment of Grenadiers on Horseback from the year 1812. In the photograph you can see the large entrance gate of that military building and its characteristic colonial arches or recesses on the sides.


The name of the professional photographer who made this interesting urban record is unknown but, in fact, he focused his large outdoor camera on the opposite side of Gonnet and Panunzi. A wet stamp in black ink, located on the lower right edge of the image mounted on rigid cardboard, indicates that this patriotic-cut photograph was commercially circulated by the well-known German Bookstore of Ernest Nolte in Buenos Aires who, around the 1870s -1880 also worked as a Publishing House printing guides of all kinds, plans, maps and albums of views by photomechanical printing. We must point out that La Librería Alemana was in close contact with scientific and geographical entities in Europe linked to our country.

 

Abel alexander President of the Ibero-American Society for the History of Photography


S.O.V-DGL
AUTHOR FOTÓGRAFO NO IDENTIFICADO

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