Marubi National Museum of Photography
Albania's national photography museum, built around the Marubi studio archive of some 500,000 negatives.
The museum preserves the archive of the Marubi studio, opened in Shkodër in 1856 by the Italian exile Pietro Marubi and continued by Kel and Gegë Marubi over three generations. Their glass plates record northern Albanian dress, highland families, weddings, funerals and the political figures of the late Ottoman period and independence. The collection was nationalised in 1970 as the Marubi Phototheque and now holds roughly half a million negatives, among the largest photographic archives in the Balkans.
A restored building on the pedestrian street Kolë Idromeno was adapted for the museum, which opened in 2016 as a national institution. The permanent display follows the studio's development from wet collodion plates to twentieth-century practice, showing original cameras, backdrops and prints alongside the 1858 portrait of Hamz Kazazi, often cited as the first photograph taken in Albania. Temporary exhibitions, talks and an online archive extend the programme beyond the Marubi family.
Highlights
- Marubi studio archive of about 500,000 glass and film negatives
- Portrait of Hamz Kazazi, dated 1858 and among Albania's earliest photographs
- Original studio cameras, backdrops and darkroom equipment
- Searchable online archive alongside the permanent display
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