Hémi-Spéos De Séboua, Pylônes; Nubie, plate 98 from the album "Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie" (1852)
1849/51, printed 1852
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 16.2 × 21.8 cm (6 7/16 × 8 5/8 in.); Album page: 30 × 43 cm (11 13/16 × 16 15/16 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
144312
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-baked sands of ancient Nubia with Maxime Du's *Hémi-Spéos De Séboua, Pylônes* (plate 98 from *Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie*, 2). Captured during the French photographer's epic 1849–51 expedition alongside writer Gustave Flaubert, this paper print documents the monumental pylons—towering gateways—of the rock-cut temple at Séboua. Published just a year later, Du Camp's lavish album was among the first to bring calotype photography to a wide audience, blending travelogue with pioneering visual record-keeping. The salted paper process, perfected by William Henry Fox Talbot,...
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...