Karnak. Propylone du Temple de Khons. Hauteur 21 mèt.; largeur, 12 mèt. 50 c.; hauteur de la baie, 15 mèt.
1849–51
Medium
Salted paper prints
Dimensions
Image: 6 15/16 × 6 7/16 in. (17.7 × 16.4 cm) Mount: 11 9/16 in. × 8 3/8 in. (29.4 × 21.2 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 (10)
Art Historical Context
Step into the grandeur of ancient Egypt through Maxime Du Camp's *Karnak. Propylone du Temple Khons*, a pioneering salted paper print from his 1849–51 expedition. Capturing the towering propylaeum—or monumental gateway—of the Temple ofonsu at Karnak, this image records a structure soaring 21 meters high and 12.5 meters, with a 15 gate that once welcomed pilgrims to honor the moon god Khonsu. Du Camp, a French writer and early photographer, documented these colossal ruins with a fresh medium, bringing the mysteries of the Nile Valley to 19th-century audiences. Accompanying novelist Gustave Fla...
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...