Bas-relief depicting the Virgin and Child on blue ground Luca della Robbia ware

The bas-relief depicts the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child, rendered in glazed terracotta with a vivid blue background—a signature of della Robbia’s workshop. The composition emphasizes serenity and divine tenderness, typical of Renaissance devotional imagery. Laffon’s photograph preserves the object’s formal qualities and surface detail, serving not as an artistic interpretation but as a neutral record for scholarly and pedagogical reference.

Laffon’s photograph captures the relief with careful lighting and focus, highlighting the contrast between the matte white figures and the lustrous blue glaze. The image is a gelatin silver print, consistent with mid-19th-century photographic practice. Its composition is straightforward, avoiding dramatic angles or embellishment, aligning with the museum’s goal of creating accurate visual references for artists and students rather than aesthetic expression.

The photograph was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1864 through the Parisian agent E. Cappe, as part of a batch of 500 images from Laffon’s documentation of the Campana Collection at the Musée Napoléon III. Laffon, one of the earliest female members of Le Société Française de la Photographie, was commissioned to record antiquities for scholarly circulation. The V&A’s acquisition underscores its early institutional investment in photographic archives for educational purposes.

In the 1850s and 60s, the V&A was pioneering the use of photography in museum education, becoming the first institution to collect and exhibit photographs. Under Henry Cole’s leadership, images like Laffon’s were integrated into the National Art Library’s resources to support design students and curators. This practice complemented traditional casts and drawings, expanding access to artworks beyond physical travel or original objects.

Laffon’s photograph remains part of the V&A’s foundational photographic archive, illustrating the museum’s early recognition of photography’s role in art historical documentation. Her work, alongside other female photographers employed by the institution, contributed to a quiet but significant shift in how visual knowledge was produced and shared. These images laid groundwork for modern museum photography practices focused on accuracy and accessibility.