Gezicht op het Royal Pavilion in Brighton, Verenigd Koninkrijk before 1862

Curator: Here we have Francis Frith's photographic print of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. It’s thought to have been captured before 1862 and is part of the Rijksmuseum's collection. Editor: Immediately, the scene gives me a quiet feeling. There's a softness to the light, the kind you find in older photographs, which imbues the fantastic architecture of the Pavilion with a serene aura. The picture sits rather small inside a kind of photo album format. Is that how it feels for you? Curator: Very much so. The Royal Pavilion has always struck me as a strange, almost dreamlike place. Frith’s muted tones and his close-up vantage point emphasize the exotic nature of the architecture and I imagine people were drawn to that aspect then. The photograph captures the intricate details—the domes, minarets, and colonnades, conjuring up images of far-off lands. It does sit low in the album, yes. The frame almost overwhelms the image itself. Editor: It does, in the sense that, at a time of great empire and British colonial expansion, there’s a complicated Orientalist fantasy at play here, isn’t there? Frith certainly seems aware that photography offered the means to catalogue such ‘exotic’ sights for a Victorian audience. He presents it to be passively consumed in someone’s domestic album. We have to recognize that framing when looking at this image today. Curator: That's true. There is that slightly uncomfortable sense of romanticized appropriation, isn't there? The Pavilion itself was, after all, conceived as a pleasure palace, a visual escape. However, I can't deny that Frith has captured a compelling image and created an undeniably dreamy atmosphere within the bounds of a rigid imperial social structure. Editor: Exactly! It is both a beautiful image and one that requires thoughtful unpacking as it sits in the space of an historical collection. Curator: And what better place than the Rijksmuseum to explore all its layered meanings, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Couldn't have put it better myself!