Debas, Fernando

Debas et Dujant, Fernando. France, mid-19th century – early 20th century. Photographer.

He settled in Spain in the 1870s, and started his professional career in Madrid with his brother Edgardo Debas, also a photographer by profession. They set up a studio at 22, Calle del Príncipe, under the trade name of Fotografía Parisiense Debas Hermanos. After several years of working together, they went their separate ways. On 30th March 1875, King Alfonso XII granted Fernando the title of chamber photographer, as well as permission to use the royal coat of arms on his establishment's displays and invoices. From that date onwards, and in the same studio, he styled himself as "First Photographer to His Majesty the King and the Princess of Asturias". In 1877 he collaborated with two other renowned professional photographers, Jean Laurent and Alfredo Esperón, to create the album of photographs of the National Wine Exhibition held in Madrid the same year.

In 1878, he opened a branch in Valladolid with great commercial success. From 1883 onwards, he styled himself at his new gallery at 31, Calle de Alcalá as “Photographer to Their Majesties, and Their Royal Highnesses, the Princess of Asturias and the Infantas”. Debas’ studio had become one of the most famous of its generation, frequented by numerous politicians, military officers, intellectuals and other personalities of the time. The painter from Seville and founding member of the Free Academy of Fine Arts of Seville, Enrique Rumoroso, collaborated with Fernando Debas as an illuminator. His works include the album of photographs of the masked ball held on 25th February 1884 at the palace of the Duke and Duchess of Fernán Núñez. From 1884 onwards, he also worked for the magazine La Ilustración and, from 1896, for Nuevo Mundo.

The enormous prestige enjoyed by Debas' establishment made him one of the most favourite photographers of the Royal Family; he held a virtual monopoly on palace photography during the Restoration and the Regency of Maria Christina. The documents in the Palace Archive attest to Debas’ connections with the Royal Household from 1875 until 1900, having taken the official portraits of Alfonso XII and of the early years of Alfonso XIII, as well as of each member of the family, their travels, leisure and entertainment.

Debas became the first photographer to show this new side of the royal family, previously unknown due to the limitations of photography. His first portraits still follow the fin-de-siècle photography formats, in response to the card-making fever of the times, and are arranged formally as required by studio portraiture back then, often with palace furnishings and accessory furniture, essential to create the most appropriate settings. Patrimonio Nacional holds nearly three hundred photographs by him, some of them bound in exquisite albums by Schropp.

Source: Royal Academy of History (https://www.rah.es)