Revert Henrique Klumb’s Developmental Narrative and the Modernization of Rio de Janeiro’s Landscapes

Abstract

The Daguerreotype was brought to Brazil just a few months after it was demonstrated in Paris. The following months saw the medium take hold in Brazil and particularly Rio de Janeiro, where the initial demonstration of Daguerreotypy took place. Among those most interested in photography was the Imperial Family. Dom Pedro II and Dona Teresa Cristina were avid collectors of photography. Among the photographers they purchased images from was Revert Henrique Klumb. Klumb was appointed photographer to Their Imperial Majesties in 1861. He took photographs of members of the Imperial Family, acted as photography tutor to Princess Isabel and took many views of Rio. His photographs of both natural and urban landscapes within Rio presented a developmental narrative that spoke deliberately to Dom Pedro II’s modernization agenda. Though marked by certain absences, Klumb’s images show us what Rio was and what Rio was becoming during the middle decades of the nineteenth century.