The Rameseum
1858/62
Medium
Albumen print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 15.5 × 22.6 cm (6 1/8 × 8 15/16 in.); Mount: 31.6 × 43.4 cm (12 1/2 × 17 1/8 in.)
Classification
albumen silver print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
38022
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-baked grandeur of ancient Egypt with Francis Frith's *The Rameseum* (1858/62), an exquisite albumen silver print capturing the majestic ruins of Ramesses II's mortuary temple Luxor. This 15.5 × 22.6 cm image, mounted on a larger 31.6 × 43.4 cm sheet, freezes the colossal hypostyle hall and fallen colossi in sharp, evocative detail, transporting Victorian-era viewers to the Nile Valley's archaeological wonders. Frith, a pioneering British photographer, undertook daring expeditions to Egypt and the Holy Land in the 1850s and 1860s, producing some of the first high-quality docu...
About the Artist
Francis Frith · 1822–1898
Francis Frith (1822–1898) was born on 7 October 1822 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, into a prosperous Quaker merchant family as the second child and only son of Francis Frith Sr. and Alice Walker. Educated at Quaker schools including Ackworth and Camp Hill in Birmingham from around 1828 to 1838, he apprenticed in the cutlery trade before establishing himself as a wholesale grocer in Liverpool, suppl...