Processing History
Scope and Contents of Collection
Preferred Citation
Access
Acquisition Information
Arrangement
Biographical /Historical Note
Related Archival Materials
Publication Rights
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Gilberto Ferrez collection of photographs of nineteenth-century
Brazil
Creator:
Ferrez, Gilberto
Identifier/Call Number: 92.R.14
Physical Description:
44.15 Linear Feet
(35 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1856-1940
Abstract: The collection comprises almost 1,000 photographic prints from the oeuvre of the Brazilian photographer Marc Ferrez, whose
work encompassed a photographic vision of imperial and early modern
Brazil
, as well as approximately 775 photographic prints by photographers active in
Brazil
from 1860 to 1940. The photographers represented include J. S. Affonso; Carlos Bippus; Fritz Büsch; Companhia Photographica
Brazileira; Guilherme Gaensly; Gaensly & Lindemann; João Goston; Pedros Hees; Alberto Henschel; Revert Henrique Klumb; George
Leuzinger; Guilhermo Liebenau; Augusto Malta; Augusto Militaõ de Azevedo; Mortimer; Augusto Riedel; and Stahl & Wahnschaffe.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: Collection material is in Portuguese, French, and English.
Processing History
The collection was partially processed by Beth Ann Guynn in 1994, and a partial preliminary inventory was created. In 2016,
Guynn and Linda Kleiger completed the processing and cataloging of the collection and encoded the finding aid written by Guynn.
The finding aid was updated by Guynn in 2020.
Scope and Contents of Collection
The present material represents a small selection from Gilberto Ferrez's vast collection of early Brazilian photography. Almost
1,000 photographs by Marc Ferrez, Gilberto's grandfather, comprise Series I. The somewhat smaller Series II, comprises approximately
775 photographs by other photographers active in
Brazil
from 1860 to 1940.
Series I encapsulates Marc Ferrez's photographic output between 1860 and 1919. Brazilian states represented include Bahia;
Rio de Janeiro; Minas Gerais; and São Paulo. Following the general breakdown of his oeuvre, roughly half of the images depict
the state and city of Rio de Janeiro and half depict the remaining states listed above. The states, in turn, are organized
by city or town. Present are landscapes; seascapes and harbors; general city views and panoramas; streets and street scenes;
and views and details of individual buildings.
In the state of Rio de Janeiro, the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Petrópolis are particularly well represented. Ferrez turned
his camera repeatedly to Guanabara Bay and Pão de Açúcar, jutting straight up out of the mouth of the bay. His panoramic views
of the city, the bay and its beaches were taken from vantage points around the city including Pão de Açúcar and Corcovado
mountain which overlooks the city from the west. In addition to both sweeping and detailed views of Avenida Central (including
later views showing Ferrez's own Cinema Pathé), Rio's major streets and attendant plazas are systematically recorded. While
many photographs were made to capture the city's remaining colonial buildings and monuments, often shortly before demolition,
others show off its modern Belle Époque facades. For example, photographs of both the old French neoclassical style Belas
Artes building and the new Belle Époque building can be found in this series. A small number of photographs document events
in Rio, notably the 1893 Naval Revolts (Revoltas da Armada).
The remainder of the series is organized thematically: agricultural subjects, especially depictions of
Brazil's
enormous coffee fazendas and coffee production in the 1880s in the years immediately surrounding the final abolition of the
institution of slavery in 1888; boats and ships; ethnographic subjects including Ferrez's early portraits of Aimoré, Apiacá,
and Toba people; occupational portraits, and street vendors; and railroads, with some obvious geographical cross-overs with
the individual states and cities.
Series II contains approximately 775 photographs by photographers active in
Brazil
from 1860 to 1940. The series comprises a mixture of vintage photographs and modern copy prints along with a few photograph
albums.
Photographers and studios represented include: J. S. Affonso; Carlos Bippus; Fritz Büsch; Companhia Photographica Brasileira;
Guilherme Gaensly; Gaensly & Lindemann; João Goston; Pedros Hees; Alberto Henschel; Revert Henrique Klumb; George Leuzinger;
Guilhermo Liebenau; Augusto Malta; Augusto Militaõ de Azevedo; Mortimer; Augusto Riedel; and Stahl & Wahnschaffe.
The largest group of photographs is by Augusto Malta, comprising approximately 250 vintage prints and an additional box of
46 modern copy prints. Malta's photographs of Belle Époque Rio de Janeiro provide a good counterpoint to Ferrez's documentation
of the city. He recorded the Ajuda Convent in 1911, which had survived the initial building phase of Avenida Rio Branco, and
the remodeling of the square in front of it, renamed Praça Floriano Peixoto, just before it was demolished to make way for
Spanish developer Francisco Serrador's Beaux-Arts-style buildings that housed the city's new cinemas. Also included among
Malta's photographs are images of
Brazil's
Exposição Nacional de 1908 and its Exposição do Centenário da Independncia of 1922 to 1923.
There are 26 photographs by Gaensly and 33 by Gaensly & Lindemann. Leuzinger holdings include an album of 56 prints entitled
Photographies de Rio de Janeiro et des environs; 42 photographs that are either loose prints or mounted on disbound album pages; and an annotated sales catalog, probably
dating from 1864 or 1865. The album
Vistas, containing 33 cabinet card views of Petrópolis, along with three additional views, is by Klumb. The third album present
in the series,
Album de vistas de Porto Alegre, by Ferrari & Irmão, contains 14 prints. Azevedo is represented by 23 prints, and Bippus by 19 prints. The remainder of the
photographers included in the series are represented by ten or fewer images.
Also included in the series is a box of almost 200 modern copy prints of South American views held in the Biblioteca Nacional
de Venezuela, Caracas. Photographers and studios of note include: Samuel Boote and Benito Panuzi (Argentina); Chaigneau y
Lavoisier and C. L. Howsell (Chile); Angel Mental (Cuba); Eugenio Courret and Courret Hermanos (Peru); Pedro Amante; Bate
and Company; and Charles Wallace Chute and Thomas Brooks (Uruguay); and Underwood & Underwood and the Keystone View Company
(various countries). At the end of the series are found thirteen exhibition catalogues for the Academia Imperial de Belas
Artes from the years between 1860 and 1884.
Preferred Citation
Gilberto Ferrez collection of photographs of nineteenth-century
Brazil
, 1860-1940, The Getty Research Institute, Accession no. 92.R.14.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa92r14
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Acquisition Information
Acquired in 1992.
Arrangement
Arranged in two series:
Series I. Marc Ferrez photographs, 1860-1919, undated;
Series II. Other photographers, 1856-1940, undated.
Biographical /Historical Note
The Brazilian businessman, historian, curator, photographer, and collector, Gilberto Ferrez, was born into a family immersed
in the visual arts. His great-grandfather and great-uncle, the sculptors Zépherin and Marc Ferrez, arrived in
Brazil
with the Mission artistique français (Missão Artística Francesa) in 1816. Greatly admiring the country, they settled there
and Zépherin soon went on to design
Brazil's
first commemorative medal, commissioned for the 1822 coronation of Dom Pedro I.
Gilberto's grandfather was the photographer Marc Ferrez; and his father, Júlio Ferrez, a film director and cinematographer,
was also the Brazilian Pathé Frères representative, selling Pathé equipment and films and running the Pathé cinema in Rio
de Janeiro. Together his grandfather, father, and uncle Luciano used the Pathé connection to expand Marc's photography business
into a firm encompassing both still and moving images.
Gilberto João Carlos Ferrez (hereafter referred to as Gilberto so as to avoid confusion with other family members, who are
also referred to by first name) was born in Rio de Janeiro on May 15, 1908. He was schooled in
Brazil
and Europe before being sent in 1927, at age 19, to London by his father to study English for a year, as knowing the language
was essential for working in the family's cinema business. He returned to
Brazil
in 1928 to join the family firm, then known as Marc Ferrez Filhos. Four years later, on 23 June 1932, he married Mary Jessop
Cotching da Fonseca Dodd, with whom he had seven daughters (Denise, 1935; Mônica, 1936; Liliane, 1939; Mary, 1942; Isabel,
1945; and twins Irene and Helena, 1948). In 1938 Júlio Ferrez gave the firm, now renamed Marc Ferrez Filhos Limitada, to his
three sons Gilberto, Eduardo and João. João sold his share of the business to his two brothers in 1945, and in 1949 they renamed
the firm Casa Marc Ferrez Cinemas, Electricidade Limitada. While Gilberto continued to be active in both the firm, which by
then was investing in and building new movie theaters, and the profession, serving as chairman of the Cinematographic Distributor
Companies Association in Rio de Janeiro from 1955 to 1974, he also developed and significantly expanded his photography, collecting,
research, writing and curatorial interests.
After returning from England in 1928 Gilberto had found a mentor in antiques dealer Francisco Marques de Santo, who introduced
him to research in the Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil. As a preservation measure, all of Marc Ferrez's were copied by one of
hisformer laboratory technicians, and Gilberto began researching the photographs, dating them based on the buildings and monuments
present in the images when Marc could not remember the exact shoot dates. From his grandfather's work, Gilberto expanded his
interests to that of other photographers active in
Brazil
, and to Brazilian iconography in general. His research on
Brazil
led him to institutions in numerous European countries and in the United States. By 1935, he had also begun amassing a collection
of photographs, coins, books, maps, prints, drawings, and other visual materials and documents relating to
Brazil
.
On August 2, 1930, Gilberto's first published photograph appeared in the "Fotografias de nossos leitores" section of
O Cruzeiro, with three more photographs appearing in the magazine's pages the following year. Two years later, in 1932, Gilberto's first
article, chronicling his exploration of Pico das Agulhas Negras, the fifth highest mountain in
Brazil
, and illustrated with his own photographs, was published in
O Cruzeiro. Over the next years, following a trajectory begun by his grandfather's photography trips, he continued to travel and publish
articles and photographs on the towns and regions of
Brazil
. Gilberto realized the first solo exhibition of his photographs,
Paisagens Brasileiras, in 1933 at the Pró Arte Sociedade de Artes, Letras e Ciências, Rio de Janeiro.
In 1941, Gilberto photographed the buildings of old Rio de Janeiro that were slated for demolition because they lay in the
path of construction of the Avenida Presidente Vargas. His photographs of the lost São Pedro dos Clérigos church are among
the few known views of this culturally and architecturally important structure. In counterpoint to his grandfather's interest
in urban renewal, modernity and progress, as demonstrated by Marc's documentation of urban renewal projects such as the construction
of Avenida Central between 1903 and 1906, to create a new, modern thoroughfare for the capital of
Brazil
, Gilberto's interests lay in the recording and preservation of urban history. But increasingly, rather than taking his own
photographs to explore and record
Brazil's
built environment, Gilberto turned to research and writing about images created by others.
Marc Ferrez's photographic corpus, along with Brazilian photography in general, were the natural places for Gilberto to concentrate
his first efforts. His essay "A fotografia no Brasil e um seus mais dedicados servidores: Marc Ferrez" was included in
Revista do patrimônio histórico e artîstico, no. 10 (1946) under the shortened title "A fotografia no Brasil." Although the number did not appear until 1953, this article
is considered to be the first study of the history of photography in
Brazil
. It was in fact one of the earliest essays to have been written in the newly emerging field of the history of photography,
being nearly contemporaneous with another pioneering work, Beaumont Newhall's more panoptic
The History of Photography (1948). This article was followed by "Um passeio a Petrópolis em companhia do fótografo Marc Ferrez," for the 1948 edition
of
Anuário do Museu Imperial (printed 1951). Over three decades after its appearance Gilberto's pioneering first article was later expanded to book-length
as
A fotografia no
Brazil
: 1840-1900
(Rio de Janeiro, 1985), which was in turn translated as
Photography in
Brazil
, 1840-1900
(Albuquerque, NM: 1990).
In 1976, Gilberto and Weston Naef co-curated the exhibition
Pioneer Photographers of
Brazil
at the Center for Inter-American Relations in New York, and co-authored the accompanying catalog. The exhibition then traveled
to the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (MAM) and the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA) in Rio. Subsequent exhibitions for
which Gilberto was responsible include his
A fotografia no Brasil do século XIX: 150 anos do fotógrafo Marc Ferrez 1843/1993 (São Paulo, 1993).
In addition to writing on photography, Gilberto also wrote on the iconography of urban
Brazil
during the colonial imperial and early republican periods, tracing the visual record found in such sources as lithographs,
newspapers, maps, watercolors, paintings and photographs. Beginning in 1951 with studies of Pernambuco State in northeast
Brazil
, he eventually expanded his iconographical interests to cover most of the country's urban areas. In 1954, Gilberto mounted
two exhibitions,
Iconografia de Petrópolis e seus Arredores and
Iconografia do Recife, Século XIX. His
A muito leal e heróica cidade de São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro: quatro séculos de expansão e evolução (1965), was published for the celebration the four-hundredth anniversary of Rio de Janeiro. Published just a few months after
his death, Gilberto's two-volume catalog of images,
Iconografia do Rio de Janeiro, 1530-1890: catálogo analítico Rio de Janeiro (Casa Jorge Editorial, 2000), can be seen as the culmination of his urban iconography studies.
All told, in addition to his numerous exhibitions, Gilberto wrote around 40 books and articles on the twin areas of Brazilian
urban iconography and photography. His books devoted to the depiction of
Brazil
in media other than photography include
O velho Rio de Janeiro através das gravuras de Thomas Ender (1957) and
Aquarelas de Richard Bate: O Rio de Janeiro de 1808-1848 (1965). Yet Gilberto's cultural studies were not confined to the built environment alone. In 1977, he wrote an expertise
in support of the classification of Pão de Açúar (Sugar Loaf Mountain) as a national asset by the Instituto do Patrimônio
Histórico e Artístico Nacional (IPHAN). This prominent natural landmark, a steep-sided peak rising straight from the water's
edge at the mouth of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, and which had figured significantly in his grandfather's images of the
city, was in danger of being chopped up and pulverized to make granite gravel when Gilberto defended it.
Gilberto was active in numerous learned and historical societies and councils including the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico
Brasileiro, where he held the office of treasurer from 1978 to 1981; the Conselho Municipal da Proteção do Patrimônio Cultural
do Rio de Janeiro; the Hispanic Society of America; and the Instituto de Geografia e História Militar do Brasil. He served
as an advisor to the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artîstico Nacional from 1958 until shortly before his death in 2000.
In 1997, he received the Brazilian government's Medalha da ordem do Mérito Cultural.
In 1995, Gilberto and Pedro Vasquez co-curated
Mestres da Fotografia no Brasil: Coleção Gilberto Ferrez, an exhibition of selections from Gilberto's vast photography collection. Held at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, this
was the last exhibition Gilberto organized. In 1998 the Instituto Moreira Salles acquired his collection of over 15,000 items,
including the complete works of Marc Ferrez (5,500 prints and over 4,000 glass negatives) as well as significant holdings
of other nineteenth-century Brazilian photographers such as Augusto Stahl, Revert Henry Klumb, George Leuzinger, Benjamin
Mulock, and Augusto Malta.
Gilberto Ferrez died on 23 May 2000, in Rio de Janeiro.
Sources consulted:
Enciclopédia Itaú cultural de artes visuais, s.v. "Gilberto Ferrez," http://enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br/pessoa963/gilberto-ferrez.
"Coleção Gilberto Ferrez," Instituto Moreira Salles, http://ims.com.br/ims/explore/artista/gilberto-ferrez
Adler, Fabio. "
Brazil
." In
Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Photography, ed. John Hannavy. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2008. 205-207.
Muaze, Mariana de Aguiar Ferreira. "Violence Appeased: Slavery and Coffee Raising in the Photography of Marc Ferrez (1882-1885),"
Revista Brasileira de Históvria, vol. 37, no. 74 (January-April, 2017). https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-93472017v37n74-02
Peregrino, Júlia and Pedro Karp Vasquez.
Família Ferrez: Novas revelações. Rio de Janeiro: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 2008.
Related Archival Materials
The Coleção Gilberto Ferrez at the Instituto Moreira Salles, Rio de Janeiro comprises 15,000 items including the complete
works of Marc Ferrez (5,500 prints and over 4,000 glass negatives) as well as significant holdings of other nineteenth-century
Brazilian photographers such as Augusto Stahl, Revert Henry Klumb, George Leuzinger, Benjamin Mulock, and Augusto Malta.
The Archivo Família Ferrez, comprising 40,000 family documents, photographs, and other items maintained and expanded by Gilberto
Ferrez, is held at in the Arquivo Nacional do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro.
Publication Rights
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Sugar Loaf Mountain (
Brazil
) -- Description and travel
Railroads --
Brazil
Ships --
Brazil
Agriculture --
Brazil
Mines and mineral resources --
Brazil
Petrópolis (
Brazil
) -- Description and travel
Beaches --
Brazil
-- Rio de Janeiro
Guanabara Bay (
Brazil
) -- Description and travel
Beaches --
Brazil
-- Rio de Janeiro
Panoramas --
Brazil
-- 20th century
Gelatin silver prints --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Copy prints --
Brazil
-- 20th century
Albumen prints --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Gelatin silver prints --
Brazil
-- 20th century
Cartes-de-visite (card photographs) --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Cabinet photographs --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Collotypes (prints) --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Rio de Janeiro (
Brazil
) -- Description and travel
Rio de Janeiro (
Brazil
: State) -- Description and travel
São Paulo (
Brazil
: State) -- Description and travel
Bahia (
Brazil
: State) -- Description and travel
Minas Gerais (
Brazil
) -- Description and travel
Plazas --
Brazil
Urban renewal --
Brazil
-- Rio de Janeiro
Cinelândia (Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
) -- Description and travel
Motion picture theaters --
Brazil
-- Rio de Janeiro
Photographs, Original
Photograph albums --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Platinum prints --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Platinum prints --
Brazil
-- 20th century
Panoramas --
Brazil
-- 19th century
Streets --
Brazil
Architecture --
Brazil
Coffee plantations --
Brazil
Rio de Janeiro (
Brazil
: State) -- Description and travel
Toba Indians
Botocudo Indians
Apiacá Indians
Exposição Nacional do Centenario da Independencia do Brasil (1922 : Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
)
Exposição do Centenario do Brasil (Location of meeting: Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
). Date of meeting or treaty signing: (1922-1923 :.)
Affonso, J. S.
Ferrari, Carlos
Academia Imperial das Bellas Artes (
Brazil
)
Henschel, Alberto, 1827-1882
Hees, Pedro, 1841-1880
Riedel, Augusto, 1836-ca. 1877
Azevedo, Militão Augusto de, 1837-1905
Ferrez, Marc, 1843-1923
Büsch, Fritz
Goston, João, d. 1882
Gaensly, Guilherme, 1843-1928
Stahl & Wahnschaffe
Companhia Photographica Brazileira
Estúdio Gaensly & Lindemann
Ferrari & Irmão
Leuzinger, George, 1813-1892
Malta, A., 1864-1957
Klumb, R. H. (Revert Henry)
Liebenau, Guilhermo
Bippus, Carlos