Image scanned and/or photographed, then color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Thebes - Karnak Temple, Great Hypostyle Hall, from the north (Thèbes - Palais de Karnak, Salle Hypostyle, Prise au Nord)

Artist Maxime Du Camp (French, 1822 - 1894)

CultureFrench

Date1851

MediumSalted paper print from waxed paper negative

DimensionsOverall, Image: 6 1/2 × 8 1/4 in. (16.5 × 21 cm)
Overall, Support: 12 1/2 × 17 1/2 in. (31.8 × 44.5 cm)
Overall, Frame: 17 1/2 × 21 5/8 × 1 1/4 in. (44.5 × 54.9 × 3.2 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank, and gift of Chris and Judy Crumley

Object number99.16

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 228

DescriptionBlack and white salted paper print of ruins of a temple in Egypt. A man named Hadji Ismael, a Nubian, stands on the left side of the temple entrance.

Label TextMaxime Du Camp French, 1822–1894 Thebes–Karnak Temple, Great Hypostyle Hall, from the north, 1850 negative, print by Imprimerie photographique de Blanquart-Evrard, from the book Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, 1852 Salted paper print from waxed-paper negative Another student of Gustave Le Gray, Maxime Du Camp arrived in the Middle East in November 1849 to start eleven months of grueling work producing some of the earliest photographs of ancient monuments. A travel writer and self-taught archaeologist, Du Camp used his Nubian servant to give a sense of the scale of the forty-three-foot crumbling and half-buried columns that had supported the side aisles of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Du Camp never photographed again, but the book published upon his return earned him the Legion of Honor and a place in history. Museum purchase, in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank, and gift of Chris and Judy Crumley 99.16 Exhibition History"New Frames of Reference: Early French Photographers at Home and Abroad," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va, gallery 228, September 5, 2024 - February 16, 2025. "Photography Speaks," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., Alice R. and Sol B. Frank Photo Galleries, September 4, 2004 - January 2, 2005.