The Place of Photographs in the Collections, Displays, and Other Work of General Pitt-Rivers

Abstract

General Pitt-Rivers’s photographic collections have received little attention before now. The surviving evidence relating to his acquisition of photographs is reviewed and, in particular, a collecting trip to Scandinavia in 1879 described. It is argued that Pitt-Rivers collected photographs primarily in order to complement the displays in the exhibition of his collection at South Kensington Museum from 1878 to 1884.