View at Luxor
1857
Medium
Albumen print, pl. 8 from the album "Egypt and Palestine, Volume I" (1858)
Dimensions
Image/paper: 16 × 23 cm (6 5/16 × 9 1/16 in.); Album page: 29.1 × 42.6 cm (11 1/2 × 16 13/16 in.)
Classification
photograph
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
157940
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-drenched sands of ancient Egypt with Francis Frith's *View at Luxor* (1857), anen print from his groundbreaking album *Egypt and Palestine Volume I* (1858). Frith, a pioneering British, ventured into the Middle East during the 1850s, hauling massive cameras and glass plates across deserts to document monumental sites. This intimate 16 × 23 cm image, mounted on a larger album page, captures timeless allure of Luxor—likely showcasing temples or obelisks amid the Nile Valley's dramatic landscape—bringing the wonders of pharaonic Egypt to Victorian drawing rooms. Printed using t...
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...