Victorian Era. Crown & Camera: The Royal Family and Photography, 1842-1910 by Frances Dimond and Roger Taylor.

Viking, 1987. First edition, hardcover in blue cloth, fine with protected fine dust jacket, like new. Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop price sticker, $29.95, on inner front panel of dust jacket. 223 pages. 240 illustrations in black and white. Photographs of Queen Victoria, her extended family, and illustrious contemporaries by noted photographers, family members, and unidentified photographers. Identified photographers include: Roger Fenton; Francis Bedford; Oscar Rejlander; Caldesi; Negretti & Zambra;  Julia Margaret Cameron; Lake Price; W.E. Kilburn; William Bambridge; Robert Milne; Mary Steen; W. & D. Downey; Gustav Mullins; Camille Silvy, et al.  Summary:

Crown & Camera: The Royal Family and Photography, 1842–1910 (1987) is an authoritative survey of the British Royal Family’s pioneering relationship with the camera. Written by Frances Dimond (curator of the Royal Archives) and photo-historian Roger Taylor, it served as the catalog for a major exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.

Key Themes

• The Early Adopters: The book chronicles the period from 1842—the date of the first known photograph of a British royal (Prince Albert)—through the end of Edward VII's reign. It highlights how Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were among the first truly influential patrons of the medium.

• Royal Patronage: It details how the family’s support helped elevate photography from a scientific novelty to a respected fine art. They commissioned major figures of the era, including Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Francis Bedford.

• The Private vs. Public Image: A central focus is the duality of the photographs. The collection includes formal state portraits used for public branding alongside deeply intimate, candid snapshots taken by the family members themselves (who were often keen amateur photographers).

• Technological Evolution: The narrative tracks the transition from the labor-intensive daguerreotype and calotype processes to the more accessible "Kodak" era, illustrating how the monarchy’s self-documentation became increasingly spontaneous.

Significance

Beyond a mere gallery of "celebrity" portraits, Crown & Camera is a social history. It illustrates how the Royal Family used photography to project a sense of stability and domestic morality across the British Empire during a century of radical industrial and social change.