Shakespeare's House from the West c. 19th century

Curator: Looking at this albumen print, "Shakespeare's House from the West", taken around the 19th century by Francis Bedford, I'm struck by its remarkable detail. Editor: It has an austere charm, doesn't it? Almost staged. The light seems unnaturally even. Like a perfectly presented dollhouse for the literary giants. Curator: Precisely. The albumen process was meticulous, requiring skilled labor in coating the paper, exposing the image, and then meticulously developing and toning. It's about the industrialization of image-making meeting architectural romanticism. Editor: I can imagine the photographer setting up their equipment, perhaps even directing passersby. The house is set back far from the camera – emphasizing a public experience of what would normally be domestic space. Makes one consider notions of access and ownership! Curator: Yes! Bedford made several photographs depicting significant British landmarks. He reproduced these and many images like it to satiate rising levels of heritage consumption at the time. What does it say about our own desires to possess a past through images? Editor: To consider owning such weighty history! But it looks lonely doesn't it? The gate, while ostensibly a public display of architectural admiration, cuts the image off, making its rich interior and former inhabitants ultimately inaccessible. Curator: And how this house became an emblem? This connects to ideas about the marketing of a national, even global, identity around Shakespeare as a brand. It's a tangible thing reduced into symbolic cultural capital. Editor: Interesting, the limitations that photographic reproduction offers! You’ve brought such illuminating insights today. Curator: It's been a pleasure reflecting on how social context shapes and is shaped by these material processes of creation and consumption.