Uxmal, Indian Bas Relief, Nun's Palace (Uxmal, Bas Relief de l'Indien, Palais des Nonnes), plate 44 from the album "Cités et Ruines Américaines, Gide Paris" (1863)

About this artwork

Désiré Charnay produced the first successful and widely disseminated images of archaeological sites in the Yucatán region of Mexico, where he spent three years traveling, writing, and photographing. In May 1860 he spent a week at Uxmal, where this photograph was made, setting up a darkroom at the ruin known as the Nun’s Palace. Charnay worked with wet collodion on glass plates, in a hot and often dirty setting, and each image required several attempts to produce a technical success. After return...