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Ruskin was an early enthusiast for the photographic process launched by Louis Daguerre in 1839, and acquired or had made over 250 Daguerreotypes (all one-off images), of which 125 are held in the Ruskin Library, the largest collection of its kind available for public view. They were conserved in 2003-05 with the aid of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.
Nearly all are of landscape or architecture, many of northern Italy, including Venice. ‘I have brought away some precious records from Florence,’ he told his father in 1845; ‘It is certainly the most marvellous invention of the century.’ The great Gothic buildings of Tuscany – Florence, Pisa, Pistoia and Lucca – feature in this display, complemented by drawings and watercolours by Ruskin of the same subjects and related archive material.
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