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 objects in the V&A collection, loan objects, topographical views, examples of design and architecture, and 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 photographs were valued as records and as source material for students. As well as being crucial records of the history of the South Kensington Museum (now 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.

Isabel Agnes Cowper (1826-1911) worked as the the South Kensington Museum's Official Museum Photographer from 1868 until her retirement in 1891. The daughter of renowned engraver, John Thompson, she originally trained as a wood engraver, engraving illustrations for volumes by John Ruskin and Henry Cole, the V&A's first Director. Examples of her engraving work entered the V&A collection some time in the late 19th century.

In 1868, Cowper, a widow, took on the role of Official Museum Photographer upon the death of her brother, Charles Thurston Thompson, the South Kensington Musem's first Official Museum Photographer. It is likely that Thurston Thompson passed on to Cowper his knowledge of photography. She would have also been exposed to the medium through her husband, Charles Cowper, who held various photographic patents in his name. Recent research confirms that there are thousands of photographs by Cowper in the collection.

The plates in this album are examples of some of the first recorded photographs taken by Cowper. The photographed objects came to the Museum in December 1867 as part of a loan display and remained on view for six months. The negatives were registered in the Museum ledger on April 1868, and many of the negatives that survive have Cowper's signature etched into collodion emulsion.

Around the time these photographs were taken, the Department of Science and Art, which administered the Library, entered into a publishing agreement with the Arundel Society. This volume is one of the earliest produced as part of the collaboration between the Department and the Arundel Society. The accompanying text in the volume fails to identify Cowper as the photographer. This is noteworthy as an earlier volume from this series featuring photographs made by her brother, Thurston Thompson, clearly identifies him as the photographer.

Cowper lived and worked at the Museum with her four children and another brother, Richard Thompson, the South Kensington Museum Assistant Director, in accomodations reserved for senior staff. Up until recently, little was known of Cowper but ongoing research has reavealed that she played an important role in the early history of the V&A and the Museum's early uptake of photography to document the arts.