ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Visualising (and Not Visualising) Eclipses

• In Event: Emerging from the Shadow: New Perspectives on Solar Eclipse Expeditions 2

English Abstract

This paper examines, from a historical and sociopolitical perspective, the visual documentation of total solar eclipse expeditions, focusing on a sharp contrast between two Portuguese-related cases: the richly photographed 1900 eclipse observed in Ovar and Viseu, and the near-total absence of visual records from the 1919 British expedition to Príncipe, central to the empirical confirmation of Einstein’s general relativity.

The first part analyses the photographs preserved in the Historical Archive of the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory (OAL) and the images published in O Occidente and Brazil-Portugal. These materials illuminate the intersection of scientific practice, visual culture, and public engagement in turn-of-the-century Portugal. The images range from scientific photographs, such as those by Jorge de Almeida Lima, revealing institutional and familial ties to the OAL, to scenes depicting visitors, temporary infrastructures, and scientific expeditions. Their circulation in the illustrated press underscores photography’s growing role in mediating scientific authority and shaping public imaginaries of science.

Set against this is the 1919 Príncipe expedition, which, despite its scientific and historiographical prominence, left virtually no photographic trace of its participants, local collaborators, or working environments. This absence prompts methodological reflection: what does it mean to study an expedition whose public memory rests on its scientific data but lacks corresponding visual narratives? How does the disappearance, or non-production, of images shape our understanding of labour, material conditions, and colonial entanglements?

By juxtaposing these two eclipses, the paper argues that the presence or absence of visual records fundamentally alters how expeditions can be reconstructed, interpreted, and situated within the broader historiography of astronomy, scientific practice, and empire.

Authors

• Hugo Soares

• Ana Simões, Universidade de Lisboa