Philoe
Maxime Du Camp
French, 1822–1894
c. 1849
A salted-paper print from a paper negative in which Maxime Du Camp sought to record the ruined riverside temple at Philoe, mixing documentary purpose with a quietly evocative sense of place.
At first glance the wide pale sky and sandy foreground draw you in, then your eye rests on the dense, dark palms and crumbling ashlar walls whose rough textures and deep shadows give the scene a hushed, timeless stillness.
An early example of mid‑19th‑century travel photography that helped establish the medium as a tool for archaeological documentation and shaped European visual ideas about Egypt.
Medium
Salted paper print from a paper negative
Dimensions
6 5/16 × 8 1/16" (16.1 × 20.5 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Warner Communications, Inc.
Accession
1129.1979
Palette
Exhibitions
