THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, REGENT’S PARK

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JUAN DE BORBÓN, COUNT DE MONTIZÓN

Genre: Documentary

Date: 1852

Location: London, UK

Format: Salt print

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“Don Juan Carlos María Isidro de Borbón, Count of Montizón (1788-1855), was the nephew of King Fernando VII of Spain and pretender to the Spanish throne. Raised in Spain, he spent most of his life in exile in Britain following his father’s violent challenge to the succession of Fernando’s daughter Isabel II in 1833. His passions were physics, chemistry and natural history; in photography he found a pursuit that combined all three interests.

In 1852, Don Juan photographed dozens of animals at the Zoological Gardens in London’s Regent’s Park, including a camel, a giraffe, a pelican and his hippocampus. He later chose this photograph as his contribution to The Photographic Album for the Year 1855. The text accompanying it reads: ‘This animal was captured in August 1849, when quite young, on the banks of the White Nile; and was sent over to England by the Pasha of Egypt as a present to Queen Victoria. He arrived at Southampton on May 25, 1850; and on the evening of the same day was safely housed in the apartment prepared fir him at the Zoological Gardens, where he has ever since been an object of great appreciation’.” (CH)

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