Photographing Europe's threatened cultural heritage and the making of religious art

Researchers collecting and classifying photographs of European cultural heritage sites threatened by war during the 19th and 20th centuries understood their work as keeping alive the memories of masterpieces in the path of destruction. Through this work selecting cultural heritage for preservation through photography, teams including the Warburg Institute, the US Monuments Fine Arts and Archives subcommission, and manuscript microfilming projects linked European cultural heritage to medieval Christians’ belongings and buildings. Using archival records from these major photographic preservation projects, I examine how photographic preservation projects facilitated the transformation of devotional objects and religious sites into collectable art.