Twelve original photos printed on salted paper were discovered in a forgotten dossier while checking the inventory of the vast historical collection in the library's archives, which contains some 1.5 million documents, library director Laszlo Szogi told reporters.
Five of the photos Fenton took between 1856 and 1858, portraying hunters, the new royal family castle at Balmoral, and landscapes showing the River Dee in the Scottish highlands, have never been reproduced in any of the Fenton collections in Britain, Austria or the United States.
No one has yet ascertained how the photos ended up in the library collection. It is believed that they came from Hungarian teacher, orientalist and traveler Armin Vambery, a Fenton contemporary, who had close connections with the British Foreign Office. It is not known whether he bartered with the library and received some other item in exchange for the images or donated them outright.
The exhibition also shows prints from the international collections, including a picture of Fenton's "photographic van," a horse-drawn photo studio and laboratory on wheels, with the artist seated in front.
Roger Fenton (1819-1869) worked as the first official photographer of the British Museum and was court photographer of the royal family. Taking pictures during the Crimean War in 1855, he became widely known as one of the first war photographers. He was one of the founders of the prestigious Royal Photographic Society in 1853.
The exhibition, co-organised with the British Embassy and the Ministry of Culture, will be open until January 30, 2009.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
