Cleopatra's Temple at Erment, near Thebes
1857
Medium
Albumen print, pl. 5 from the album "Egypt and Palestine, Volume I" (1858)
Dimensions
Image/paper: 16.2 × 22.7 cm (6 7/16 × 8 15/16 in.); Album page: 29.4 × 42.6 cm (11 5/8 × 16 13/16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
157937
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-baked sands of ancient Egypt with Francis Frith's *Cleopatra's Temple at Erment, near Thebes* (1857), an exquisite albumen print from his landmark album *Egypt and Palestine Volume I* (1858). Captured during Frith's pioneering expeditions to the Middle East, this photograph (plate 5) immortalizes the majestic ruins of a temple linked to Cleopatra, evoking the grandeur of Ptoleic Egypt just outside Thebes. Measuring 16.2 × 22.7 cm on its album page, it now resides in the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography and Media department. Frith, a British photographer and one of the ...
About the Artist
Francis Frith · 1822–1898
Francis Frith (1822–1898) was born on 7 October 1822 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, into a prosperous Quaker merchant family as the second child and only son of Francis Frith Sr. and Alice Walker. Educated at Quaker schools including Ackworth and Camp Hill in Birmingham from around 1828 to 1838, he apprenticed in the cutlery trade before establishing himself as a wholesale grocer in Liverpool, suppl...