In 1853, Charles Thurston Thompson, the first Official Photographer of the South Kensington Museum (later the V&A), was commissioned to photograph a loan exhibition of furniture at Gore House, London. It was the first of many photographic campaigns documenting temporary loan exhibitions that were to become a hallmark of the Museum's photographic service. Such loan objects were photographed prior to their return to lenders so that photographic copies could be sold to designers, craftsmen and students, and also filed in the Museum's library for study. Thompson inadvertently included himself and his camera, reflected in the mirror. It gives us a vivid glimpse of a photographer at work outdoors - in the garden at Gore House - in the early days of the Museum and the profession of Museum Photography.