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PHOTOGRAPHY

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHIC FINDINGS

Palace of the Count of Villaverde. La Paz. Bolivia. Circa 1925.

Gelatin silver print -17.1 x 23 cm / 6.73 x 9.05 in-, with a white margin and the intervened negative with the title of the image, and the indication of authorship: “L. D. GISMONDI = Fo”. Good copy. Work reproduced in the book “Luigi Domenico Gismondi. An Italian photographer in La Paz”. (1)


View of the main courtyard of the Palace of the Marqueses de Villaverde, in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. Built around 1730 in colonial baroque style, the front of the patio stands out from the building, precisely recorded in this architectural type photograph, with its stone arches and the great central semicircular triumphal arch and heraldic shield that, along with rich ornamentation, were sculpted in stone. With very good judgment Gismondi located this young man -his assistant?- to give a complete idea about the real magnitude of the palace. This magnificent building is located in the historic center of La Paz, between Ingavi and Jenaro Sanjinés streets. Due to its colonial civil architecture in 1930 it was declared a National Monument. Around 1948, the Bolivian government bought the property, at that time owned by Mr. Humberto Peinado and designated it as the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, Fine Arts and Indigenous Affairs and, in 1962, its rooms were fitted out to house the collections of the Museum of Popular Art and Handicrafts, current MUSEF, a function it currently fulfills.


Luigi Domenico Gismondi (1872 - 1946), Italian photographer, arrived on the Peruvian Pacific coast in 1891 (2) and after traveling through the south of that country, in 1907 he founded his own studio in La Paz, Bolivia. Considered one of the great Andean photographers, we find him here documenting with his usual mastery the emblematic buildings of a great city such as La Paz.

Note:

1) Pedro Querejazu L.: Luigi Domenico Gismondi. An Italian photographer in La Paz. Ed. from the author, La Paz, 2009, p. 38, fig. 49. 2. Pedro Querejazu L.: Ob. cit., 2009, p. 7. S.O.IV-BLM

AUTHOR LUIS D. GISMONDI

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