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Synopsis

A revolutionary machine arrived in the Río de la Plata as the Nation was emerging. The invention capable of “capturing reality” became an ideal witness to the great transformations of the second half of the 19th century.

“The Imprint on the Image” is a documentary series that proposes a journey to the origins of the National State through the earliest forms of photography.

Divisions, agreements, historical milestones, and legends of the country in the making were inscribed by light onto daguerreotypes, collodion glass plate negatives, and luxurious albums that spanned the centuries.

The true faces of national heroes, the expansion of frontiers, economic growth, urban development, private life, the thousand faces of immigration, the political organization of the country—the spectacle of reality left its mark on these invaluable objects.

Unitarians and Federals. Civilization and barbarism. San Martín in the mirror. Buenos Aires and the provinces. The first views of the Argentine countryside. The indigenous peoples, the gauchos, the foreigners. Carte de visite portrait albums: a true 19th-century Facebook.

In museums, archives, and private collections, the series follows the work of prominent researchers obsessed with the stories behind those images. Photographs are cross-referenced with paintings, maps, and engravings to understand how they were produced and how they circulated.

The illustrated war against Paraguay. The campaign to the “Devil’s Country.” Photography as a tool of science and progress. A new visual atlas of the country in albums of views and customs, and through the lens of the first amateur photographers.

Between science and art, between mystery and alchemy, across eight episodes, the stories of 19th-century Argentine photography guide us through an unknown universe governed by images.