Drašković family and photography

When one talks about photography in Croatia, two members of the Drašković family cannot be passed over.

Count Juraj VI Drašković, noted in the history for his military career and as a restorer of Trakošćan Castle, is one of the pioneers of photography in Croatia. Two of his albums confirm him as the author of Croatia's earliest preserved photographic opus. He made a series of calotype photographs, which was the earliest process of obtaining photographic images with the help of negatives and prints on paper. In 1865, he made the first known nude in Croatian photography. It was dubbed the Jurimir Maid. The setting of the photograph reveals the influence of the nudes painted by Mihael Stroy.

Another Drašković relevant for the history of photography in Croatia was Karlo. He is considered to be one of the founders of art photography in Croatia and the most important Croatian amateur photographer of the nineteenth century. He achieved a superb artistic and technical excellence of photography. He was admitted to membership of one of the most elite European photographic clubs, the Wiener Camera Club.

Of his copious collection, a particular mention deserve frozen motion photographs (Stjepan Erdödy's jump, L. Odeschalchi's jump into water) as well as the naturalistic portraits of people from the margins, by which he steered the art of photography in Croatia towards social topics.