Fotoreproductie van een ontwerp van de stoet waarmee het lichaam van koning Léopold I van België van Laken naar Brussel wordt gebracht before 1866

This photograph shows the funeral procession of King Léopold I of Belgium, and was made by Ghémar Frères. The image is a reproduction, a copy of a design, and its making involved sophisticated chemical processes for the time. Photography was a relatively new medium in the 19th century, still enmeshed with traditions of painting and printmaking, yet offered a seemingly objective way to record and disseminate information. Consider the social context: Léopold I's funeral was a major public event, a carefully staged display of national mourning, and the photograph served as a means of documenting and propagating the image of a powerful monarch, and this technology was tied to politics. The photograph's capacity to capture such detail – the vast crowds, the architecture, the solemn atmosphere – speaks to the medium's unique ability to translate such labor and class, into a tangible, reproducible form, showing the importance of understanding its making and circulation.