Jérusalem, Porte de David, Vue extérieure
Medium
Salted paper print from paper negative
Dimensions
Image: 32.8 x 23.5 cm (12 15/16 x 9 1/4 in.) Mount: 59.8 x 44.8 cm (23 9/16 x 17 5/8 in.)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.373.140
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step through the timeless stones of Jerusalem with Auguste Salzmann's *Jérusalem, Porte de, Vue extérieure* (1854), a salted paper print that offers one of the earliest photographic glimpses of the city's historic David's Gate. Captured from the exterior, this image reveals the gate's weathered arches and fortifications, evoking the layered history of this sacred site at the heart of the Old City—a portal long revered in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. Salzmann, a French photographer and physician, ventured to the Holy Land in 1853-54 as part of an ambitious expedition to document b...
About the Artist
Auguste Salzmann|Imprimerie photographique de Blanquart-Évrard, à Lille · 1824–1872
Born 15 april 1824. Salzmann travelled to Palestine in 1850 to 1851 as a draughtsman for a French expedition to the East. Salzmann returned to Paris, France in 1851 and learned photography which he used as an aid to his archaeological research. In 1853 Salzmann was commissioned by the Ministry of Public Instruction to visit Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and the islands of the Archipelago to photograph ...