The most beautiful people in the finest salons of the Regency era

Danish by origin, Christian Franzen (1864-1923) arrived in Spain at the beginning of the regency of María Cristina de Habsburg. In his elegant studio on Madrid's Calle del Príncipe he built his prestigious catalog of portraits, in which we find members of royalty and, from the king downwards, all those who were something in the high society of that time. When Madrid opened its doors to the 20th century, Franzen could be found in the aristocratic salons of the capital, so generously described by society chroniclers. In those cenacles of the restored monarchy the photographer was present, displaying his personal elegance, his insinuating speech and his natural talent for seduction and treatment. His reports on Madrid social life at the turn of the century were collected in the album The halls of Madrid (1898), with text by Monte-Cristo and prologue by Emilia Pardo Bazán. But Franzen was also a cultivated person and close to artists and writers who sincerely appreciated his talent and the delicacy of his writing. From his friendship with Emilia Pardo Bazán, Juan Valera and, above all, with Pérez Galdós and Joaquín Sorolla, magnificent portraits have been left, with which the photographer composed the best gallery of celebrities of his time, only comparable to that of Laurent in the yours. On the occasion of the first centenary of his death, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando remembers this forgotten and extraordinary photographer with a book and an exhibition, without whose work we could not understand the history of Regency Madrid, nor our own. history of Spanish photography.

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