’’I do not understand how anyone can be without photographic camera’’

- Anastas Jovanovic

The legacy of Serbian 19th century photography is primarily consisted of the works and documents  of Anastas Jovanovic. The exhibited works are part of the gift of Katarina Jovanovic, the daughter of a distinguished artist, benefactress of Belgrade’s cultural institutions, who devoted her whole life to the development of the national spirit of a society. The peculiarity of this collection is that objects reflect the nineteenth century socio-political and cultural environment in Serbia

In the year 1840. Jovanovic meets, for first time, the new technical discovery – photography. Although this is not the first known photographic process, the daguerreotype is the first “recognized” image.

Anastas Jovanovic continued to pursue photography after the year1844. mostly with talbotype photographs, and then with other photographic techniques. He produced an outstanding body of work. Besides the portraits of many figures in Serbian history, culture, science, and social life of the 19th century, he made a large number of panoramas (Vienna, Belgrade, Kragujevac, Petrovaradin).

Works and documents of Anastas Jovanovic, except in the Military Museum, are located in the Belgrade City Museum, the Historical Museum of Serbia, the Ethnographic Museum, the Museum of Vuk and Dositej, the National Museum and the National Library of Serbia in Belgrade and in Novi Sad, the Gallery of Matica Srpska.