Vue des deux colosses de l'Aménophéum, à Thèbes
1849–50
Medium
Salted paper print from paper negative
Dimensions
Image: 6 1/8 × 7 7/8 in. (15.5 × 20 cm) Mount: 12 5/16 × 18 11/16 in. (31.2 × 47.5 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
2005.100.376.75
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the mid-19th century, writer and pioneering photographer Maxime Du Camp captured one of the earliest photographic records of ancient Egypt during his 1849–50 expedition with Gustave Flaubert *Vue des deux coloss de l'Aménophéum, à Thèbes* depicts the towering Colossi of Memnonmassive seated statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III guarding his temple mortuary complex near Luxor (ancient Thebes). These 60-foot granite guardians, weathered by millennia, symbolized pharaonic power and have inspired travelers since antiquity. Printed as a salted paper print from a paper negative, this work exemplifies...
About the Artist
Maxime Du Camp · 1822–present
Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894) was a pioneering French photographer and writer whose adventurous spirit and technical innovation bridged literature and visual art during the mid-19th century. Born in Paris on February 8, 1822, to a prosperous family—his father a successful surgeon—Du Camp received a solid bourgeois education at the Collège Bourbon (now Lycée Condorcet), where he cultivated interests i...