Cleveland Museum of Art

Untitled (Pifferari)

Date

c. 1851–55

Medium

salted paper print from wet collodion negative

Culture

France or Italy

Department

Photography

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Taken to catalogue and document cultural practices, photographs such as this one were intended as portraits of professions or ethnographic types rather than portraits of individuals. An unidentified photographer captured the picturesque pifferari, country musicians who wandered European cities around Christmas playing before images of the Virgin and on the streets. They were a common theme for French and Italian painters and photographers in the 1840s and 1850s.

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.