Palais de Karnak, sculptures extérieures du sanctuaire de granit.
1849–51
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image: 6 7/16 × 8 7/16 in. (16.3 × 21.4 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Museum Purchase, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.967.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the ancient grandeur of Egypt's Karnak Temple Complex with Maxime Du Camp's *Palais de Karnak, extérieures du sanctuaire granit* (1849–51). This salted paper print captures the weathered exterior sculptures of the granite sanctuary, featuring carved figures of men and boats—likely barques symbolizing the sun god's voyages across the heavens. Du Camp, a pioneering French photographer and writer, documented these monumental forms during his 1849–51 expedition alongside Gustave Flaubert, producing some of the earliest photographs of's pharaonic wonders. Printed on paper salted with sod...
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...