Photographs and photographers were present from the very beginning of the V&A's history and the Museum has an extensive collection of images from the 1850s through to the present which documents the South Kensington Museum's (and later the V&A's) collection.

Originally collected by the National Art Library as part of a programme to record works of art, architecture and design in the interest of public education, these topographic and architectural views were valued as records and as source material for students of architecture and design. As well as being crucial records of the history of the V&A, and an important element within the National Art Library's visual encyclopaedia, these photographs are also significant artefacts in the history of the art of photography.

Charles Thurston was the first official photographer employed by the South Kensington Museum. He was appointed in 1856. His subject here is a carved English mirror. Relying upon natural light, Thompson photographed this object outdoors, inadvertently including his camera and the surrounding landscape, reflected in the mirror. Curious is the fact that the photographer himself is not present in the reflection (as in the case in other photographs of mirrors taken by Thompson). Most probably, Thompson removed himself from the frame at the beginning of the exposure, which would have necessarily been very long,returning into the frame momentarily in order to cover the lens. As a result, his image did not visibly register on the glass negative.