The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 25, 2024

The Pyramids of Saqqara, from the Northeast

The Pyramids of Saqqara, from the Northeast

1858
(British, 1822–1898)
England, 19th century
albumen print from wet collodion negative
Image: 38.2 x 47.7 cm (15 1/16 x 18 3/4 in.); Matted: 61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)
Gift of Charles Isaacs in honor of Louis and Martha Isaacs 1996.19
Location: not on view

Description

Frith was the first photographer in Egypt to successfully use the wet collodion process, introduced in 1851. Its glass plate negatives yielded sharper, more detailed images than paper ones. He even created mammoth plate prints, as this size is called, which required equally large glass plate negatives. Pursuing the process’s exacting chemistry in Egypt’s scorching sunlight was trying. Frith sometimes sought refuge in tombs for the cool air and darkness to process his plates. “Pushing myself backwards upon my hands and knees, into a damp slimy rock-tomb . . . I prepared my pictures by candlelight in one of the interior chambers. . . . The floor was covered . . . with an impalpable ill flavored dust, which rose in clouds as we moved; from the roof were suspended groups of fetid bats.”
  • Charles Isaacs, New York, NY
    March 4, 1996
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 178
  • Pyramids & Sphinxes: Views of Egypt. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 6-May 24, 2016).
  • {{cite web|title=The Pyramids of Saqqara, from the Northeast|url=false|author=Francis Frith, William Mackenzie|year=1858|access-date=25 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1996.19