Napoli Tarantella
ca. 1870
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Image: 19.7 × 25 cm (7 3/4 × 9 13/16 in.) Mount: 25.8 × 35 cm (10 3/16 × 13 3/4 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Greenwich ART Group Gift, 2013
Accession Number
2013.134a
Tags
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 t...
About the Artist
Giorgio Sommer|Unknown
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...