Queen's Album e-catalogue - Catalog - Page 21
At the time of their creation, the negatives were
developed in a dark room environment. Today, this
is done using digital technologies. Techniques that
were once used to manipulate the image now affect
a different outcome. For example, masking fluid
painted on negatives to heighten black and white
tonal qualities appear as a red, rust colour on the
digitised image. These insights into the glass plate
negative as a working tool came as a surprise to us,
and we made a conscious decision to work with the
A HISTORY MYSTERY:
WHERE IS THE
QUEEN’S ALBUM?
Our search for the 1882 Queen’s album has spanned
cultural collections in Australia and overseas.
Curators, archivists and librarians from the Royal
Collection Trust—custodian of the Royal Collection,
which incorporates the private archives of the
images uncorrected.
British Royal Family—British Library, Bodleian
Having discovered 48 glass plate negatives in
NSW and National Library of Australia have assisted
the State Archives Collection that were an exact
match with images in the Queen’s album (plus
an additional three that were near-matches), we
looked elsewhere to find the remaining negatives.
Unsuccessful, we secured digital copies of the prints
contained in the State Library of NSW’s 1880
album. With all but one of the images digitised,
we could begin reimagining the Queen’s album
through the exhibition project. But we were still
left with the question of the whereabouts of
the 1882 Queen’s album.
Image samples from The Queen's
Album social media campaign, 2019,
from Collection of photographs
presented for the acceptance of
Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria by the Government on behalf
of the people of New South Wales
1880
Volume - text detail, coloured
State Library of NSW
X981/3
(left, above)
Botanic Gardens
1879
Glass plate negative
NSW State Archives
NRS 4481 SH436
Library, National Archives (UK), State Library of
us, but our search has not yet yielded a result.
We have decided to turn to the public, and to the
platform of social media to help us solve this ‘history
mystery’. Our access to newspaper reports from
the early-1880s detailing the creation and gifting
of the Queen’s album was made possible through
the National Library of Australia’s online database,
Trove. This platform enables users to curate lists
of their findings and share this with the public –
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