Encampment in the Wilderness of Paran (#529)
Francis Frith
British, 1822–1898
c. 1860
This albumen silver print photograph by Francis Frith depicts a small tent encampment of people and domestic objects set among palms at the foot of a towering rocky escarpment, made around 1860 to record Middle Eastern landscapes for Victorian audiences interested in travel and biblical places.
What immediately arrests the eye is the sense of scale—the craggy, monumental cliff and tall palms dwarf the pale, conical tents and tiny seated figures, turning a quotidian campsite into a fragile, intimate tableau against a vast, silent landscape.
The image belongs to an early wave of travel and documentary photography that helped shape Western visual knowledge of the Middle East, demonstrating how photography could function as both evidence and imagination in archaeological, religious, and imperial narratives.
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
6 × 8" (15.2 × 20.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Anonymous gift
Accession
636.1976
Palette
Exhibitions
