Grand Temple d'Isis, à Philae, inscription démotique
1849–51
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image: 6 1/16 × 8 3/8 in. (15.4 × 21.3 cm) Mount: 8 3/8 × 11 9/16 in. (21.2 × 29.4 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.967.1 (8)
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-drenched world of ancient Egypt through Maxime Du Camp's *Grand Temple d'Isis, Philae, inscription démique* (1849–51), a salted paper print capturing the majestic Temple of Isis on the island of Philae. Du Camp, a pioneering French photographer and writer, documented this Ptolemaic-era marvel during his 1849–51 expedition along the Nile with Gustave Flaubert. The image zeroes in on a demotic inscription— a cursive script from late-period Egypt—etched into the temple's weathered stone, offering a close-up glimpse of hieroglyphic artistry that bridges pharaonic and Greco-Roman ...
About the Artist
Maxime Du Camp · 1822–present
Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894) was a pioneering French photographer and writer whose adventurous spirit and technical innovation bridged literature and visual art during the mid-19th century. Born in Paris on February 8, 1822, to a prosperous family—his father a successful surgeon—Du Camp received a solid bourgeois education at the Collège Bourbon (now Lycée Condorcet), where he cultivated interests i...