Bas-relief Bust of the Emperor Galba

The image captures a stone bust of Galba, the third emperor of the Year of the Four Emperors (AD 68‑69). By rendering the relief in a three‑dimensional format, Laffon sought to preserve the tactile qualities of the original sculpture, allowing viewers to study its contours and inscriptions without direct access to the artifact.

Laffon employed a stereoscopic or relief‑printing process that produced a photograph with raised surfaces, mimicking the depth of the carved stone. This method was unusual for the period, when most museum photographs were flat prints, and demonstrates an experimental approach to reproducing three‑dimensional objects in the mid‑nineteenth century.

The photograph was part of a series Laffon created of objects from the Campana Collection, then housed in the Musée Napoléon III (now the Louvre). In 1864 the V&A purchased 500 images from this series through the agent Monsieur E. Cappe, incorporating them into the National Art Library’s holdings for use by scholars and museum staff.

The V&A was the first British institution to collect photographs (1852) and to exhibit them (1858), under the direction of Henry Cole, who promoted photography as a teaching aid. Female photographers like Laffon and Isabel Agnes Cowper contributed significantly to this early photographic archive, though their roles have only recently been recognised.

Laffon’s bas‑relief photograph illustrates the museum’s pioneering integration of photography into art historical research. Its three‑dimensional quality anticipates later techniques for documenting sculpture, and its recent re‑examination highlights the overlooked contributions of women photographers to museum collections.