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Indepth Arts News:
"Souvenirs of the Nile: Nineteenth-Century Photographs of Egypt"
2000-07-01 until 2000-09-24
Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University
Atlanta, GA,
USA United States of America
Beginning with its rediscovery in the age of Napoleon, Egypt held a great fascination for the West.
Images of Egypt - disseminated first in drawings and engravings, and later in the newly invented
photograph - spurred curiosity and inspired more and more travelers to visit the exotic sites
themselves. As the techniques of photography became less cumbersome over time and pictures more
easily mass-produced, photographic firms were established in places like Cairo and Luxor that
specifically catered to the growing number of tourists.
These firms provided picturesque views of the
ancient monuments which could be carried back as mementos of a journey. The photographs in this
exhibit were collected by Maria Tamsin Hersey while on tour in the 1890s. The subjects range from
the pyramids of Giza to the temple of Isis at Philae. With the advent of the hand-held camera, images
like these were soon to be replaced by do-it-yourself snapshots.
IMAGE:
Courtyard with Statues,
Temple of Ramesses II, Luxor.
Anonymous Italian photographer,
19th century Ca. 1880-1889,
Gelatin silver print from collodion negative.
1984.11.7
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