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THE THOMAS ASHBY PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE: A PRIVATE ARCHIVE NOW IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 August 2023
Abstract
The prints, negatives and albums in the British School at Rome's Thomas Ashby Photographic Archive are a rich assortment of materials created by Ashby and his colleagues, such as Agnes and Dora Bulwer. The archive was the natural and spontaneous product of Ashby's personal and working life and it was not until after his death that it was transferred into the public institutional domain. This article investigates the original intention of Ashby's archive, its transfer from a private to public context, and its subsequent evolution and reception. Building on the work of previous BSR staff and scholars, the article looks at Ashby's archive from a fresh perspective, emphasizing the need to consider the archive's original non-public authorial intent, its polyphonic elements, and the diachronic nature of its formation and reception from Ashby's time to the present. Given that images within photographic archives are now regularly viewed as digital objects, this is a timely discussion of the nature of private photographic archives that have been moved into the public domain. It is now more important than ever that archives like Ashby's are acknowledged as entities with detailed and complex histories, and that these histories are taken into account when viewing the individual photographs within the archive.
Le stampe, i negativi e gli album conservati nell'archivio fotografico di Thomas Ashby presso la British School at Rome rappresentano un ricco assortimento di materiali creati da Ashby e dai suoi colleghi, come Agnes e Dora Bulwer. L'archivio si è formato come prodotto naturale e spontaneo della vita personale e lavorativa di Ashby, e solo dopo la sua scomparsa ha acquisito una valenza istituzionale di carattere pubblico. Questo articolo esamina il proposito originale che sottende all'archivio di Ashby, il suo trasferimento da un contesto privato a uno pubblico e la sua successiva evoluzione e ricezione. Basandosi sul lavoro di precedenti collaboratori e ricercatori della BSR, l'articolo analizza l'archivio di Ashby da una nuova prospettiva e sottolinea la necessità di considerarne l'intento autoriale originale, di carattere privato, gli elementi polifonici e la natura diacronica della sua formazione e ricezione dalla sua genesi ad oggi. Considerato che le immagini degli archivi fotografici sono abitualmente fruite come singoli oggetti digitali, questa discussione sulla natura degli archivi fotografici privati che sono stati trasferiti nel pubblico dominio è opportuna. Ora più che mai è importante che archivi come quello di Ashby siano riconosciuti come entità costituite da narrative complesse e ricche di particolari, e che queste narrative siano prese in esame ogni volta che si visualizzano le singole fotografie all'interno dell'archivio.
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References
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Stoddart, S.K.F. (2016) Rediscovering Thomas Ashby (F, 1887–93) in Malta. The Trusty Servant 122: 8–9.Google Scholar
Wade, J. (2022) Expeditions from Rome: Thomas Ashby, his BSR companions and the Roman roads of Italy. Papers of the British School at Rome 90: 267–95.10.1017/S0068246221000246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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BSR Administrative Archive. Rome, British School at Rome.Google Scholar
BSR Photographic Archive. Thomas Ashby Collection, Dora and Agnes Bulwer Collection and the BSR Collection of Early Photography.Google Scholar
BSR Archive. Thomas Ashby Notes and Notebooks.Google Scholar
Capt. J. Douglass Kennedy Collection. The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, the University of Manchester.Google Scholar
Ashby, T. (1902) The classical topography of the Roman Campagna I. Papers of the British School at Rome 1: 125–285.10.1017/S0068246200004876CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashby, T. (1906) The classical topography of the Roman Campagna II. Papers of the British School at Rome 3: 1–212.10.1017/S0068246200004967CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashby, T. (1910) The classical topography of the Roman Campagna III. (The Via Latina) — Section II. Papers of the British School at Rome 5: 213–432.10.1017/S0068246200005316CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bautier, R.-H. (1961) Les archives. In Samaran, C. (ed.), L'Histoire et ses méthodes. Paris, Galllimard.Google Scholar
Bosco, F. and Deganutti, A. (2017) (eds) San Giovanni al Natisone nella Grande Guerra: immagini e testimonianze. Cormons, Poligrafiche San Marco.Google Scholar
Bucci, A. (2007) La collezione fotografica Bulwer e i manoscritti Lanciani. Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae 14: 95–111.Google Scholar
Bultrighini, U. (2011) Foreword. In Tordone, V. (ed.), Thomas Ashby: Viaggi in Abruzzo 1901/1923. British School at Rome Archive 9: 13. Milan, Silvan.Google Scholar
Caraffa, C. (2011) From ‘photo-libraries’ to ‘photo-archives’. On the epistemological potential of art-historical photo collections. In Caraffa, C. (ed.), Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History: 11–44. Berlin and Munich, Deutscher Kunstverlag.Google Scholar
Crawford, A. (1999) Robert Macpherson 1814–1872, the foremost photographer of Rome. Papers of the British School at Rome 67: 353–403.10.1017/S006824620000461XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dally, O. (2019) L'Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica 190 anni dopo: la prospettiva tedesca. Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 120: 35–42.Google Scholar
Duranti, L. (2014) Il documento archivistico. In Giuva, L. and Guercio, M. (eds), Archivistica. Teorie, metodi, pratiche: 19–33. Rome, Carocci.Google Scholar
Edwards, E. (2000) Exchanging photographs: preliminary thoughts on the currency of photography in collecting anthropology. Journal des Anthropologues (online) 80–81: 1–17, doi: 10.4000/jda.3138.Google Scholar
Edwards, E. (2011) Photographs: material form and dynamic archive. In Caraffa, C. (ed.), Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History: 47–56. Berlin and Munich, Deutscher Kunstverlag.Google Scholar
Hodges, R. (2000) Visions of Rome. Thomas Ashby Archaeologist. London, British School at Rome.Google Scholar
Martinelli, T. (1986) Macchine fotografiche e negativi. In Mari, Z. (ed.), Thomas Ashby. Un archeologo fotografa la Campagna Romana tra '800 e '900: 13. Rome, De Luca.Google Scholar
Murray, J. (1858) A Handbook of Rome and its Environs forming Part II of the Handbook for Travellers in Central Italy. London, John Murray.Google Scholar
Paoloni, G. (2014) Il documento e le sue istituzioni. Archivi, biblioteche, musei. In Guiva, L. and Guercio, M. (eds), Archivistica. Teorie, metodi, pratiche: 429–52. Rome, Carocci.Google Scholar
Röll, J. and Schallert, R. (2014) La Fototeca della Bibliotheca Hertziana (Istituto Max Planck per la storia dell'arte). In Fabjan, B. (ed.), Immagini e memoria, gli Archivi fotografici di Istituzioni culturali della città di Roma, atti del convegno, Roma, Palazzo Barberini, 3–4 dicembre 2012: 169–82. Rome, Gangemi.Google Scholar
Sassoon, J. (2004) Photographic materiality in the age of digital reproduction. In Edwards, E. and Hart, J. (eds), Photographs Objects Histories: On the Materiality of Images: 196–213. London, Routledge.Google Scholar
Schlak, T. (2008) Framing photographs, denying archives: the difficulty of focusing on archival photographs. Archival Science 8: 85–101.10.1007/s10502-009-9081-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, J. (2011) The archival garden: photographic plantings, interpretive choices, and alternative narratives. In Cook, T. (ed.), Controlling the Past: Documenting Society and Institutions. Essays in Honor of Helen Willa Samuels: 69–110. Chicago, Society of American Archivists.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. (2020) Working objects in their own time: photographs in archives. In Pasternak, G. (ed.), The Handbook of Photography Studies: 513–29. London, Routledge.10.4324/9781003103974-37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, C. (2011) Foreword. In Tordone, V. (ed.), Thomas Ashby: Viaggi in Abruzzo 1901/1923. British School at Rome Archive 9: 11–12. Milan, Silvan.Google Scholar
Stoddart, S.K.F. (2016) Rediscovering Thomas Ashby (F, 1887–93) in Malta. The Trusty Servant 122: 8–9.Google Scholar
Wade, J. (2022) Expeditions from Rome: Thomas Ashby, his BSR companions and the Roman roads of Italy. Papers of the British School at Rome 90: 267–95.10.1017/S0068246221000246CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, J. and Giovenco, A. (2022) Road trips, rail journeys and landscape archaeology: reconstructing research itineraries and travel excursions in Italy through the British School at Rome's photographic collections. Papers of the British School at Rome 90: 297–324.10.1017/S0068246222000010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wade, J. and Giovenco, A. (2023) Expeditions from Rome. Travelling along the ancient roads of Italy with Thomas Ashby and his companions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. BSR Virtual Exhibitions: https://virtualexhibitions.bsr.ac.uk/omeka-s/s/expeditions-from-rome/page/welcome (last accessed 30 June 2023).Google Scholar