Photographs and photographers were present from the very beginning of the V&A's hist ory and the Museum has an extensive collection of images from the 1850s through to the present which documents the construction and development of the V&A and the South Kensington site.

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.

This photograph was made on 4 June 1861. Despite the inked annotation, it is not a photograph of one of the 1862 International Exhibition buildings. Rather, it is a photograph of the about to be opened Royal Horticultural Gardens (RHG), which were officially opened on 5 June 1861 by HRH, the Queen and HRH, Prince Albert.

The Gardens and its buildings were born out of the proceeds of the 1851 Great Exhibition. The architecture was designed by Francis Fowke who would go on to design the buildings for the 1862 Exhibition and the V&A. This photograph was presented to the Museum by Fowke along with other documents relating to the 1862 Exhibition. Even though the Gardens were not technically part of the 1862 exhibition, as they exhisted adjacent to the future display, there was the expectation that they would be visited by the public who would be streaming into the area. As HRH, Prince Albert stated at the 1861 opening of the RHGs:'This Garden will open an additional source of enjoyment to the thousands who may be expected to crowd the new Crystal Palace of Inudstry.'