La primera fotografía de la Feria de Abril de Sevilla revelada en la exposición sobre Leygonier

A set of three shops set up on a platform in the Prado de San Sebastián, seen from afar and from above. This is the first existing photograph of the Seville April Fair. Dated 1859, it was taken by the Seville photographer Francisco Leygonier and reproduces the familiar booth of the dukes of Montpensier.

This photograph can now be seen at the Seville Museum of Fine Arts, as part of the monographic exhibition dedicated to this pioneer of photographic art. The exhibition brings together, until June 8th, over 80 originals, the vast majority from the Fernández Rivero collection. Among them are also views of monuments in Seville, Granada, and Córdoba, as well as portraits, reproductions of paintings, and some prints of Andalusian festivities, such as Holy Week.

It is a unique image. There are no more copies or duplicates of this salted paper positive calotype, measuring 132 x 230 millimeters. It was acquired by Juan Antonio Fernández Rivero, curator of this exhibition alongside María Teresa García Ballesteros, at an auction held in Paris and had not been exhibited until now.

«Without a doubt, this is the first documented image of the Seville April Fair», states Fernández Rivero, who also points out that it would be necessary to wait more than two decades, that is, until the 1880s, to document other snapshots of the Seville fairgrounds, specifically, «those of the Seville photographers Ramón Almela and Emilio Beauchy, as well as those of the Parisian house Léon et Lévy, and even, to a lesser extent, those of the Granadian Rafael Garzón and the Cordoban Tomás Molina«.

«The photograph of the booth of the dukes of Montpensier at the fair is one of the most outstanding works of this exhibition,» assesses the Minister of Culture and Sports, Patricia del Pozo, who believes the exhibition pays «a fair tribute to its author,» Francisco Leygonier. «He was ahead of his time, as demonstrated by always staying abreast of photographic technique innovations to incorporate them into his Seville studio, open to the public for no less than 35 years,» Del Pozo remembers.

At the time this image was taken, in 1859, Leygonier held the title of official photographer of the Montpensier household, a title he had been granted four years earlier. By then, he had already carried out several photographic projects for the duke, such as shots of their Seville residence – the Palace of San Telmo, family portraits, different views of Seville, as well as reproductions of the paintings that were part of the private collection of the Montpensier couple: Antonio María de Orleans and María Luisa Fernanda.

This appointment, along with the frontal sweep presented in the lower part of this snapshot, something very characteristic of this photographer, allows for the attribution of the authorship of this first image of the Seville Fair to Leygonier. This photographer, according to expert Fernández Rivero, «used to make a cover or reserve in the negative of the calotypes to make the ground of a shot disappear when he didn’t like the result.» A habit that can be seen in several of the images reproduced in the exhibition, as well as in its catalog.

The Ybarra and Bonaplata Fair

At the initiative of two Seville councilors by adoption: José María Ybarra and Narciso Bonaplata, the Seville City Council recovered the celebration of the livestock fair, dating back to the time of Alfonso X the Wise. After the approval of the plenary session, the Seville Fair was finally inaugurated on April 18, 1847, in the Prado de San Sebastián, with 19 booths and a significant public and business success.

In 1858, a project for the reordering of the booths in the enclosure was presented, which was finally implemented a year later. It was then that the family booth of the dukes of Montpensier, as investigated by architect Rafael Fernández García, was moved to the location where it appears in the photo taken by Leygonier: at the exit of the Puerta Nueva or San Fernando, a monument that was destroyed in October 1868.

First of the Seville photographers

Francisco Leygonier (Seville 1808-1882) is the most precocious of the huge list of professional photographers from Seville in the 19th century. Along with Luis Masson and Emilio Beauchy, he forms the great triumvirate of photographers who, from Seville, left a profound mark of their photographic work at a national and international level.

Leygonier’s case is unique because his early photographic activity transcended the city of Seville to become a true pioneer in the use of the daguerreotype and the calotype – the first negative/positive process that allowed multiple reproductions – in Andalusia and in Spain. The press in Seville, and also in Madrid, echoed his creations.

Seville, Palacio de San Telmo, southern facade, ca. 1858-1862. Albumin, 208 x 269 mm. Francisco Leygonier.

His views of Seville were, in many cases, the first photographic images that travelers could acquire. His are the most primitive calotypes that we can contemplate of the city and are now brought together for the first time in the exhibition at the Seville Museum of Fine Arts: the Royal Alcázar, the Town Hall, the Plaza Nueva under construction, the Church of Charity, the Cathedral, the Giralda, the Casa de Pilatos, the Torre del Oro, the Palacio de San Telmo, or the Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza, among others.

Francisco Leygonier, born in Seville into a family of French origin, had to go to France after the death of his father. At just 11 years old, he went to live in the neighboring country at the house of his older sister, who had married a Napoleonic officer seasoned in the War of Independence. He returned to Seville at the age of 33 surrounded by a certain mystery, given his previous profession as a sailor that had taken him halfway around the world.

Since his return and to the surprise of his fellow citizens, Leygonier practiced the young and innovative art of photography in Seville. The arrival of the Montpensier family in the city, in the early 1850s, brought to light his Seville photographs in a catalog that he expanded in the following years with images of Granada and Córdoba.

The studio of Francisco Leygonier, successively located on Calle Cantimplora, Calle Ravetilla, and the Patio del Alcázar, offered his portraits and views for more than three decades, until the late 1870s.

The Pretender and the «Small Court»

The Duke of Montpensier was the fifth son of Louis Philippe of Orléans, king of the French from 1830, and Maria Amelia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Following France’s interests, he married the Spanish infanta Maria Luisa Fernanda (1832-1897), sister of Queen Isabella II, with aspirations to the Spanish throne.

The exile of his father from France, due to the revolution of 1848, led them to move to Spain. The government of Isabella II did not consider it prudent for them to establish their residence in the capital, which is why they chose Seville to settle. They acquired an extramural location, the Palacio de San Telmo, formerly the University of Mareantes and then the Institute of Secondary Education, to turn it into their home.

The duke, who had the writer Antonio de Latour as his private tutor, was a highly educated man, a great lover of the arts and sciences. He was a patron and ambitious art collector, as well as an amateur archaeologist, who was also passionate about photography, an art he promoted profusely, even commissioning works from photographers like Leygonier, Charles Clifford, Luis Masson, and Jean Laurent, among others.

In just a few years, the Montpensier family transformed the Palacio de San Telmo, one of the most photographed monuments of the time, into a true court, popularly known as the «small court,» where intellectuals, artists, and politicians gathered. So much so that this «court» even came to rival that of Madrid.

In any case, the Duke of Montpensier was a prominent instigator of conspiracies against his sister-in-law to seize the throne. The revolution of 1868 led to the abdication of the queen, but Montpensier did not reach the throne due to the opposition of General Prim, who chose Amadeo of Savoy. He then had to go into exile. Upon his return to Spain, in 1870, he killed his other brother-in-law, Enrique de Borbón, in a pistol duel, definitively ruining his chances of ascending the throne.

His daughter Maria de las Mercedes married her nephew, King Alfonso XII, but passed away shortly after. Montpensier died during a hunting trip in another of the Andalusian locations where he also had a residence, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, in 1890.