'Specimens from Marlborough House 1854'

Album containing 84 photographs (RCINs 2800160-2800241) of objects displayed in the museum at Malborough House. The album contains a manuscript title page and a contents list. Many of the objects depicted in the album are now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum collection. A selection remain in the Royal Collection.

This photograph album contains what are probably the first professional photographs taken by Francis Bedford. In 1853, Bedford was asked by Henry Cole to document works of art in the art museum at Marlborough House (the forerunner of the South Kensington Museum, later the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The photographs were subsequently copied as lithographs and published a few years later.