Farnesische stier in het Neues Museum, Berlijn 1868 - 1870

This stereoscopic photograph of the Farnese Bull in the Neues Museum, Berlin, was created by Johann Friedrich Stiehm. It’s not a traditional artwork, but a manufactured image, made in multiple using a camera and printing press. Photography in the 19th century involved a complex interplay of craft and chemistry. Light-sensitive emulsions, carefully prepared, captured images on glass plates, which were then printed onto paper. This particular example is a stereograph, designed to create an illusion of three-dimensionality when viewed through a special device. This lent a vivid sense of realism, a selling point for commercial photographers like Stiehm, who capitalized on the public's appetite for imagery of distant places and famous artworks. Consider the labor involved: from the photographers on site to the workers in the printing shop. These mass-produced images democratized access to art and culture, but also speak to the industrialization of image-making, and its intersection with tourism and cultural consumption. In looking at this object, we appreciate the material processes that shape our understanding of art.