Maxime Du Camp 1822-1894
Nubie. Ibsamboul. Partie Serpentrionale du Speos d'Hathor
Salt print mounted on card
15 x 22 cms
5 14/16 x 8 10/16 ins
5 14/16 x 8 10/16 ins
2001
Plate 108: Nubie. Ibsamboul, from Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie. Du Camp's photographs are the first published views of the Middle East. Du Camp learned calotyping from Gustave Le Gray...
Plate 108: Nubie. Ibsamboul, from Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie.
Du Camp's photographs are the first published views of the Middle East.
Du Camp learned calotyping from Gustave Le Gray and in 1849 persuaded the French Ministry of Education to send him on a photographic tour of archeological sites, accompanied by the novelist Gustave Flaubert. Du Camp focused on photographing the pyramids, the sphinx and other Egyptian monuments. On their twenty-one-month tour, Du Camp made 220 calotypes, 125 of which were printed by Louis-Desire Blanquart-Evrard and published as Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, the first book about the Middle East illustrated with actual photographs. This was published by the most famous photographic printer of the preriod Blanquart-Evrard in 1852. After his return, Du Camp gave up photography and devoted his time to writing.
The present work is typcial of Du Camp's presentation of ancient monuments in their inclusion of minute figures that emphasise the enormous scale of the Egpytian ruins. Often, these figures are identifiable from their clothing as local men.
Du Camp's photographs are the first published views of the Middle East.
Du Camp learned calotyping from Gustave Le Gray and in 1849 persuaded the French Ministry of Education to send him on a photographic tour of archeological sites, accompanied by the novelist Gustave Flaubert. Du Camp focused on photographing the pyramids, the sphinx and other Egyptian monuments. On their twenty-one-month tour, Du Camp made 220 calotypes, 125 of which were printed by Louis-Desire Blanquart-Evrard and published as Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, the first book about the Middle East illustrated with actual photographs. This was published by the most famous photographic printer of the preriod Blanquart-Evrard in 1852. After his return, Du Camp gave up photography and devoted his time to writing.
The present work is typcial of Du Camp's presentation of ancient monuments in their inclusion of minute figures that emphasise the enormous scale of the Egpytian ruins. Often, these figures are identifiable from their clothing as local men.
Provenance
Private Collection, ParisLiterature
Andre Jammes and Eugenia Parry Janis, The Art of the French Calotype, With a Critical Dictionary of Photographers, 1845-1870, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1983, p. 173.Isabelle Jammes, Blaquart-Evrard et les origines de l'edition photographique, Droz, Geneve, 1981, pages 81-91
Parr and Badger, The Photobook: A History Vol. 1, Phaidon, London, 2004, page 23