Napoli Tarantella

Art Historical Context

This captivating albumen silver print, created around 1870 by photographer Giorgio Sommer, captures a lively scene of the traditional Neapolitan tarantella dance. Sommer, a German-born artist who settled in Naples, specialized in genre photographs that documented everyday Italian life for an international audience. The image shows men, women, and children energetically dancing, accompanied by guitarists, reflecting the joyful folk customs of southern Italy during the late nineteenth century. Albumen prints like this one were the dominant photographic medium of the era, prized for their rich tonal range and fine detail achieved by coating paper with egg-white emulsion. Sommer’s work helped popularize such cultural moments as tourist souvenirs and ethnographic records, preserving fleeting traditions at a time when Italy was modernizing after unification. Today, the photograph offers viewers a vivid window into 1870s Neapolitan society, blending artistic composition with documentary purpose. Its warm, dynamic grouping of figures continues to charm museum visitors, illustrating how early photography bridged art and cultural history.

About the Artist

Giorgio Sommer|Unknown · 1834–1914

Giorgio Sommer, born Georg Sommer on September 2, 1834, in Frankfurt am Main within the German Confederation, emerged as one of 19th-century Europe's most prolific photographers. After studying business in his hometown, where his family fortune was reportedly lost to his father's gambling, Sommer apprenticed as a photographer before launching his professional career in Switzerland, producing relie...