This photograph was included in the exhibition Victoria & Albert: Art & Love at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, until 31 October 2010.
Acquired by Queen Victoria.
In 2010 this photograph was uploaded to flickr by The British Monarchy.
The text on the Royal Collection website (www.royalcollection.org.uk) describes this Daguerreotype (Accesssed: 6 Aug 2010):
Giovanni Matteo Mario, Cavaliere de Candia, the Italian tenor, made his London debut as Gennaro in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia on 6 June 1839 and was seen in that role by Queen Victoria two days later: she found his voice 'very fine and full of feeling' and noticed that he was 'tall, quite young and very handsome'. During the next twenty-eight years the Royal Family heard Mario on many occasions, sometimes at Covent Garden, where he sang from 1847, and sometimes in concerts performed at Buckingham Palace.
