| Abstrakt: |
The museum of casts in Montpellier, inaugurated in 1890, was one of the first university museums to open in France on the model that had already existed in Germany since the 18th century. It was housed in three successive buildings. The first museum, set up in the former Saint Eloi Hospital is known through an excellent set of photographs of the rooms. The collection of photographs including some 5000 proofs is representative of the compilations of the archeology departments at the end of the 19th century, which included anonymous proofs and editors'proofs, architectural views and reproductions of museum works. Using the example of Montpellier, this article studies the role of photography in the museums of casts. Integral part of the museography, with large prints hung on the walls to replace missing casts; they also were used to situate the casts in context, or to evoke restorations. Photography played an important educational role as well. Through the idea of the “general catalogue" photographic editors (Alinari, Braun) undertook photographic corpus based on works in museums or series of monuments. In 1888, Heinrich Brunn and Friedrich Bruckmann undertook a vast editorial project the Denkmäler Grieschicher une Römischer Skulptur, which allowed the large scale diffusion of the comparative method elaborated by Brunn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
