Alphonse Bernoud / Claude Grillet
1857-1858
At Polla [earthquake damage]

Albumen print
The Royal Society
Product code: RS-8801
 
Landscape showing almost total destruction of buildings in the town of Polla, Italy. Inscribed verso in ink "No_at Polla" with instructions to the printer in pencil: "omit outwards Pencil Line. Distant view may be omitted or in faint outline & size reduced". Numbered upper right in ink and pencil "No.63 Polla". Collected by Robert Mallet and reproduced as a lithograph in his 1862 Report, vol.1 pp.92-93, cropped accordingly.
 
NOTE: In the Royal Society catalogue this print is listed as by "Alphonse Bernoud Grellier" this is an error. There were two notable photographers of the 1857 earthquake in Campania and Basilicata "Alphonse Benoud" and "Claude Grillet", who was a French photographer with a studio in Naples. The book Giovanni Fanelli, 2011, Alphonse Bernoud (1820-1889). Firenze, Napoli, Livorno, (Paris: Private edition) clarifies this issue. (pers. email, Giovanni Fanelli to Alan Griffiths, 24 March 2015)
 
LL/58667