Bas-relief depicting a Gorgon Head in terra cotta

Laffon’s photograph employs the albumen print process, common in mid-19th-century photographic documentation. The image captures fine surface details of the terra cotta relief with clarity, using controlled lighting to highlight sculptural depth. The composition is frontal and neutral, avoiding dramatic angles or embellishment, reflecting the photograph’s function as an archival and instructional resource rather than an expressive work.

The photograph originated in a series documenting objects from the Campana Collection at the Musée Napoléon III in Paris. Louise Laffon, a member of Le Société Française de la Photographie, produced the series between 1860 and 1864. In 1864, the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A) acquired 500 images from this set through the Parisian agent E. Cappe, integrating them into its growing photographic archive for educational use.

During the 1850s and 1860s, the V&A actively built a photographic collection to support design education, supplementing casts and drawings. Female photographers like Laffon and Isabel Agnes Cowper were instrumental in this effort, though their contributions were often unacknowledged. Laffon’s work exemplifies how international networks of photographers supplied the museum with high-quality documentation of continental antiquities, expanding its pedagogical reach.

The photograph remains part of the V&A’s historical archive, representing one of the earliest institutional uses of photography for art historical study. Laffon’s role as a female professional in a male-dominated field underscores the quiet but significant contributions of women to museum practices. Her work helped establish photography as a standard tool for documentation, influencing how museums preserve and disseminate knowledge of material culture.