Carlo Naya

Italian, 1816-1882

BiographyCarlo Naya (1816-1882) is best known as one of Italy’s leading 19th century leading travel, architecture and art photographers who produced images suitable for both the tourist and art historian. His interest in photography began after he completed his degree in law at the University of Pisa (1840) and through his introduction to the new daguerreotype process while visiting Paris in 1839. He purchased his own photographic equipment and opened a studio with his brother in Istanbul in 1845 after travelling extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. Upon his brother’s death, Naya returned to Italy and settled in Venice, opening his own studio in 1857. During his long career, Naya photographed every aspect of Venice and his views of its palaces on the Grand Canal and panoramas serve as a comprehensive visual document of the city’s architecture from the mid-nineteenth century. His clean, crisp views of must-see tourist sites, as well as the city’s palaces, churches, museums and art were bound into souvenir albums and sold to upper-class travelers by the prominent photographer and publisher Carlo Ponti (1823-1893).

In addition to running a successful studio, Naya also regularly exhibited his work and won the Great Medal at the Universal Exhibition of London (1862), followed by gold medals at the World’s Fair in Paris (1867) and the Exhibition of Groningen (1869).

Today, his photographs can be found in the collections of the Toledo Museum of Art as well as the Antonian Museum at the Basilica del Santo, Padua; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

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