Collection History

The materials selected for the debut of this evolving digital collection include classics of illustrated travel and regional archaeology, as well as the Library's earliest works of photography in the Middle East region. In general, they came to the Library from the founding collections of the Astor and Lenox libraries; these institutions had in turn acquired many titles as contemporary illustrated publications of their time. The digital collection ranges to the turn of the last century when entrepreneurial photographers and publishers mass-produced handsome mounted photographs, custom albums, and elegant photo-mechanically printed books for the tourist. Most of the photographic compilations came to the Library as gifts from the descendents of the travelers whose journeys they evoke.

Background

Monuments of ancient Egypt and the Biblical world figured prominently in the early years of photography. French Academician François Arago (1786-1853) endorsed the new medium in 1839 claiming it would provide a labor-saving means "to copy the millions and millions of hieroglyphics which entirely cover the great monuments at Thebes, Memphis and Carnac, etc." Immediately artist-travelers took chemicals, cameras, and photographic plates of metal, and later glass into the regions around the southeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, to record the famous sights that had been known previously to Westerners only through the intervention of the artist's hand.

In addition to early photographic pioneers Du Camp, Salzmann, Robertson & Beato, and Frith, the collection includes work by image providers catering to tourist travelers in the last third of the 19th century, such as Arnoux, A. Beato, Bonfils, Lekegian, Sébah, and Zangaki. The selection offers resources for exploring Western impressions of the Middle East in that era through the lens of practitioners of the new medium of photography, and in turn through the expectations, preferences, and assumptions of its consumers.

Related Resources

Beelden van de Oriënt: fotografie en toerisme, 1860-1900 = Images of the Orient: Photography and Tourism, 1860-1900. (c1986)

Chevedden, Paul E. The Photographic Heritage of the Middle East: an Exhibition of Early Photographs of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, & Iran, 1849-1893. (c1981) Occasional papers on the Near East; OP 1/3.

Dewitz, Bodo von. An den süssen Ufern Asiens: Ägypten, Palästina, Osmanisches Reich: Reiseziele des 19. Jahrhunderts in frühen Photographien.(1988)

Evans, Elaine Altman. Scholars, Scoundrels, and the Sphinx: a Photographic and Archaeological Adventure Up the Nile. (2000)

Graham-Brown, Sarah. Images of Women: the Portrayal of Women in Photography of the Middle East, 1860-1950. (1988)

Howe, Kathleen Stewart. Excursions Along the Nile: the Photographic Discovery of Ancient Egypt. (c1993)

Jammes, Marie-Thérèse. En Egypte au temps de Flaubert: 1839-1860, les premiers photographes. ([1980])

L'Orientalisme: l'Orient des photographes au XIXe siècle. (c1994)

Perez, Nissan N. Focus East: Early Photography in the Near East, 1839-1885. (1988)

Vaczek, Louis Charles and Gail Buckland. Travelers in Ancient Lands: a Portrait of the Middle East, 1839-1919. (c1981)