"Reading The Red Book: Ferdinand de Rothschild and the Country House Album"

本论文研究了《红皮书》，这是一本由费迪南德·德·罗斯柴尔德男爵（1839-1898）在他1877年建造的沃德斯登庄园制作的摄影集。这个相册中的图像经常被复制并用于说明与这个房子相关的历史，但相册本身作为一个独立的对象从未被分析过。1897年，费迪南德·德·罗斯柴尔德（Ferdinand de Rothschild）出版了《红书》（the Red Book），以纪念他在白金汉郡的庄园和“爱的劳动”成立20周年。这张专辑制作了多份，由27张胶印照片组成，专门展示了沃德斯登庄园的景色和各个方面。我的项目将分析费迪南德·德·罗斯柴尔德（Ferdinand de Rothschild）——罗斯柴尔德银行家族奥地利分支的后代——的自我塑造与他自己的房子的照片之间的关系，这些照片是他委托收集的。本文将论证，这样的考察提供了对现代犹太人在欧洲的经历以及摄影表现在其表达中所起作用的洞察。《红书》为沃德斯登庄园的形式和功能提供了一个视觉之旅，产生了对房子的叙述，既是一个仪式空间，也是一个反思空间。当通过相册的地形框架进行调解时，对财产的摄影描述成为Ferdinand de Rothschild自己的历史，身份和遗产的自觉表达。《红书》也是一种更广泛的物质文化的产物，这种物质文化是由罗斯柴尔德家族、犹太庄园所有者和土地贵族在解放后的欧洲制作的乡村别墅专辑。并置乡村别墅摄影创作和保存的主题，揭示了相册制作和流通的文化是如何被用来记录、展示和传播房屋图像的。因此，这种做法可以被理解为19世纪精英身份建构的一个组成部分。仔细阅读《红皮书》为理解乡村别墅摄影的意义提供了一种新的方法，超越了通常对其作为建筑和室内记录的功效的欣赏，将这些照片视为充满记忆和意义的标志。专辑的时间、空间和诠释方面将塑造这个项目的方向。通过再现代表性，身份和代理的主题，我的论文将围绕纪念乡村别墅专辑的特定方面进行组织。我将用画册的形式来解读它的功能，将《红书》作为一种独特的物质文化放置在摄影画册的多重记录中，并利用其多样化的特征来阐明其创作者的精神气质。仔细阅读《红皮书》将产生两个核心的探究线索：作为费迪南德自己身份的叙述，以及作为更广泛的物质历史背景和乡村别墅视觉文化及其摄影表现的证据。确定社会和内心的自我是如何被浓缩到一本相册的叙事结构中，将为犹太人的经历和乡村别墅的摄影提供洞察力。我将使用《红书》作为整体，对斐迪南·德·罗斯柴尔德（Ferdinand de Rothschild）对他的财产的看法进行拓扑分析，而不仅仅是部分的总和，这暗示了他在家中最重视的东西，以及他想表达的关于自己的理想。在更广泛的文化和社会背景下调解历史演员的复杂性，本文将证明，通过仔细检查房屋的摄影表现，可以解读主体性，打开未被充分研究的乡村房屋摄影集类型，以获得更广泛的批判性欣赏的可能性。

This dissertation examines The Red Book, a photographic album produced by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1898) of Waddesdon Manor, his country house built in 1877. Images from this album are often reproduced and used to illustrate histories associated with this house, but the album itself as a discrete object has never been analysed before. In 1897, Ferdinand de Rothschild commemorated the twentieth anniversary of his Buckinghamshire estate and 'labour of love' with the publication of The Red Book. Produced in multiple copies, the album consists of twenty-seven collotypes dedicated to views and aspects of Waddesdon Manor. My project will analyse the relationship between the self-fashioning of Ferdinand de Rothschild, a scion of the Austrian branch of the Rothschild banking family, and the photographs of his own house that he commissioned and collected for this album. The thesis will argue that such an examination offers insight into both the modern Jewish experience in Europe and the role played by photographic representation in its articulation. The Red Book provides a visual tour of the forms and functions of Waddesdon Manor, producing a narrative account of the house as both a ritualistic and reflexive space. When mediated through the topographical framework of the album, photographic depictions of the property become self-conscious expressions of Ferdinand de Rothschild's own history, identity, and legacy. The Red Book is also product of a wider material culture of country- house albums executed by the Rothschild family, Jewish estate owners, and landed aristocracy in post-emancipation Europe. Juxtaposing themes of creation and preservation in photography at and of country houses uncovers how the culture of album production and circulation was employed to document, display, and circulate the images of houses. This practice can therefore be understood as an integral aspect of identity construction for nineteenth-century elites. A close reading of The Red Book offers a new approach to understanding the significance of country-house photography, going beyond the usual appreciation of its efficacy as a documentation of buildings and interiors to see such photographs as signs redolent with memory and meaning. The temporal, spatial, and hermeneutic aspects of the album will shape the direction of this project. Through the reoccurring themes of representation, identity, and agency, my dissertation will be organized around particular aspects of the commemorative country-house album. Using the form of the album to decipher its function, I will situate The Red Book as a distinct piece of material culture within the multiple registers of the photographic album and exploit its diversiform characteristics to illuminate the ethos of its creator. A close reading of The Red Book will produce two central threads of inquiry: an examination of the volume as a narrative of Ferdinand's own identity and as evidence of the wider context of the material history and visual culture of the country house and its photographic representation. Identifying how the social and interior self is condensed into the narrative structures of a photograph album will provide insight into both Jewish experience and photography at country houses. More than a sum of its parts, I will use The Red Book in its totality to construct a topoanalysis for Ferdinand de Rothschild's vision of his property as suggestive of what he valued most in his home and the ideals he desired to express about himself. Mediating the complexities of historic actors against wider cultural and social contexts, this dissertation will demonstrate that subjectivity is decipherable through the careful examination of photographic representations of houses, opening the understudied genre of country-house photographic albums to the possibilities of wider critical appreciation.