The Mystery of Helena Modjeska’s First and Last Kraków Photographs: The Walery Rzewuski’s and Józef Sebald’s Glass Negatives in the Jagiellonian Library Collection
Agnieszka Wanicka
agnieszka.wanicka@uj.edu.plJagiellonian University (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6455-0243
Abstract
The article focuses on a unique collection of glass negatives held at the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków. These works by the esteemed Polish photographers Walery Rzewuski (1865–1869) and Józef Sebald (1903) capture the actress Helena Modjeska in her first and last photographic sessions in her hometown. In 2024, the negatives were digitised for the first time at the Museum of Photography in Kraków, so that digital copies identical to the originals were obtained. By reconstructing the history of the relationship between the actress and Rzewuski based on various sources, the article examines the phenomenon of Modjeska’s earliest photographs in character and investigates the talent of one of the first Polish theatre photographers. Inspired by Geoffrey Batchen’s Negative/Positive: A History of Photography (2021), the author attempts to demonstrate how examining negatives can shift our perspective on the understanding of photography, including theatre photography.
Keywords:
Helena Modjeska, Walery Rzewuski, theatre photography, 19th century, history of photography, glass negative, actor’s craftReferences
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Authors
Agnieszka Wanickaagnieszka.wanicka@uj.edu.pl
Jagiellonian University Poland
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6455-0243
Agnieszka Wanicka - Assistant Professor at the Theatre and Drama Department of the Polish Studies Faculty of the Jagiellonian University, she also lectures at the Aleksander Zelwerowicz Theatre Academy in Warsaw. Her research interests focus on the history of theatre as well as theatre photography, particularly in the nineteenth century. She is a co-curator of the virtual exhibition Theatre Memory: Polish Theatre Photography from the Beginning Until the Present.
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