Vue de la Plaine de Thèbes prise du temple de Karnac
1867
Medium
Albumen silver print from paper negative
Dimensions
Image: 32 × 41.5 cm (12 5/8 × 16 5/16 in.) Mount: 19 13/16 × 25 9/16 in. (50.3 × 65 cm)
Classification
Photographs
Department
Photographs
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Accession Number
2005.100.679
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-drenched vastness of ancient Egypt with Gustave Le Gray's *Vue de la Plaine Thèbes prise du de Karnac* (1867), an albumen silver print capturing the sweeping Plain of Thebes from the iconic Temple of Karn. Le Gray, a pioneering French and teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts, to Egypt late in his career, using his lens to immortalize the monumental ruins that symbolized humanity's ancient grandeur. This 32 × 41.5 cm image, mounted on a larger 50.3 × 65 cm sheet, draws viewers into a timeless landscape of crumbling columns and endless horizons. Printed from a paper negative—a ...
About the Artist
Gustave Le Gray · 1820–1884
Gustave Le Gray, born on August 30, 1820, in Villiers-le-Bel near Paris to a prosperous merchant family, pursued his artistic ambitions against his parents' wishes for a legal career. As an only child, he trained as a painter in the studios of François-Édouard Picot and Paul Delaroche at the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibiting at the Paris Salons in 1848 and 1853. In 1844, he married Palmira Leonardi...