Thèbes, Temple de Ramasseum, Colosses brisés
1870s
Medium
Albumen silver print
Dimensions
Image: 10 9/16 × 14 7/8 in. (26.8 × 37.8 cm) Mount: 13 7/8 × 18 1/16 in. (35.2 × 45.9 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Charles Isaacs and Carol Nigro, 2015
Accession Number
2015.777.2
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the 1870s, French photographer Émile Béchard captured the ruins of ancient Egypt in his albumen silver print *Thèbes, Temple Ramasseum, Coloss brisés*. This evocative image depicts the shattered colossi—massive fallen statues of Pharaoh Ramesses II—at his grand mortuary temple in Thebes (modern Luxor). Built around 1250 BCE to honor the warrior-king's deeds and ensure his eternal legacy, the Ramesseum once boasted towering figures symbolizing divine power, but earthquakes and time left them dramatically broken, evoking the fragility of even the mightiest empires. Béchard's photograph, with...