Jenny Lind; Marietta Alboni, Countess Pepoli (née Maria Anna Marzia)

1 portrait matching 'daguerreotype'

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Jenny Lind; Marietta Alboni, Countess Pepoli (née Maria Anna Marzia)

by William Edward Kilburn
hand-coloured, quarter-plate daguerreotype, 1848
4 1/2 in. x 3 1/2 in. (115 mm x 89 mm) overall, sight
Purchased, 2002
Primary Collection
NPG P956

On display in Room 20 on Floor 2 at the National Portrait Gallery

Sittersback to top

Artistback to top

Linked publicationsback to top

  • 100 Photographs, 2018, p. 15 Read entry

    Hand-coloured Daguerreotypes combined two demanding techniques - photography and miniature painting. Colouring was an extremely skilled task, often carried out by former miniaturists, who applied finely ground pigment to the plate using a dry brush. To highlight gold or silver jewellery worn by the sitter, real gold would often be used or the plate scratched away to reveal the silver underneath the emulsion. This hand-coloured Daguerreotype by William Kilburn (1818-91) of singers Jenny Lind (1820-87; left), known as ‘the Swedish nightingale’, and Marietta Alboni, Countess Pepoli (1823-94; right), is a remarkable example of outstanding artistic skill and meticulous craft.

  • Ribeiro, Aileen; Blackman, Cally, A Portrait of Fashion: Six Centuries of Dress at the National Portrait Gallery, 2015, p. 178

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1848back to top

Current affairs

Led by Feargus O'Connor, up to 50,000 Chartist members meet on Kennington Common, to form a procession and present another petition to Parliament. Although there was a large military and police presence, the rally was peaceful.

Art and science

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood a group of English painters, poets and critics, is founded by John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, intent on reforming art by rejecting the artists who imitated Raphael and Michelangelo. Instead, they advocated a return to a close observation of nature, invested with the intense detail, colours, and compositions of Quattrocento Italian and Flemish art, producing works layered with symbolism.

International

Following the fall of the French monarchy, revolutions take place in France, Germany and Italy, provoked by a widespread desire for political independence from repressive regimes, and a range of economic problems which had caused unemployment, food shortages and poverty. Louis Napoleon becomes the first President of France's Second Republic.
The first gold rush takes place in America, after gold is found on the Sacramento river, California.

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