Charles Clifford was the official court photographer to Queen Isabella of Spain and is renowned for his exceptional photographs of 19th-century Spanish architecture and landscapes. Having moved to Spain in 1852, Clifford dedicated much of his career to documenting the country’s rich cultural heritage, capturing both ancient architectural sites and artistic treasures with meticulous care. His work offers an invaluable photographic record of Spain’s landscapes, monuments, and people during a time of great historical and cultural change.

Clifford’s photographic practice was shaped by his mastery of various processes, including the daguerreotype and calotype, which he utilized with impressive skill to create vivid and detailed images. Later in his career, he embraced the wet-collodion glass-plate process, producing albumen prints that highlighted his technical precision and artistic vision. His known body of work consists of several hundred negatives, all demonstrating a consistent approach to composition, lighting, and detail. Through his portraits of the Spanish landscape and architecture, he captured the country’s majestic history and its evolving identity.

Throughout his career, Clifford was an active participant in the photographic community. He was a member of both the Société Française de Photographie and the Architectural Photographic Association, where his work was recognized for its contributions to the art of photography. Often collaborating with his wife Jane, who was also a photographer, he traveled extensively across Spain, creating a rich and comprehensive visual record of the nation. Today, his photographs remain some of the most significant and well-known visual documents of 19th-century Spain, preserving the beauty and historical significance of its landscapes and architecture for future generations.