skip to page content - The Thereza Christina Maria collection is
composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II
(1825-91) throughout his life and donated by him to the National
Library of Brazil. The collection covers a wide variety of
subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians
in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of
Europe, Africa, and North America. The Atlantic Forest, or Mata
Atlantica, extends along Brazil’s Atlantic coast from the Rio
Grande do Sul to Minas Gerais. Isolated from other tropical
forests, the area boasts remarkable biodiversity, even though
less than ten percent of the original forest still exists. The
forest was photographed in the late 19th century by Marc Ferrez
(1843-1923), a Brazilian artist of French heritage who
documented the development of Brazil as a nation. In the late
1870s, Ferrez worked with the Brazilian Geological Commission
and traveled the country photographing landscapes. These
photographs later were exhibited in the Unite