Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000349Fallen Statue at the Ramesseum, Thebes
About the Artwork
Overcoming both physical dangers and technical difficulties, Francis Frith traveled to obscure regions of the world to capture exotic images for an eager Victorian audience. Taken on the second of three trips to Egypt, this photograph was created with a mammoth plate (typically an 18-x-22-inch glass negative), which enabled the artist to capture the smallest details of a scene. Here Frith conveyed the monumentality of the ancient Egyptian sculpture by including members of his expedition in the picture. The image was published in an album containing 20 mammoth-plate views, the only published volume of Frith's large photographs and one of the first devoted to large-scale prints.
Inscriptions
Written in black ink on recto of mount: "Frith, Photo. 1857"; "The RAMESEUM of EL-KURNAH / Thebes - First View"
Provenance
(Janet Lehr Fine Arts, East Hampton, NY) December 7, 1992: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Nineteenth Century Views of Egypt. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-September 9, 1992). Selected Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-April 11, 1993). Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997). Pyramids & Sphinxes: Views of Egypt. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 6-May 24, 2016). Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Francis Frith (British, 1822–1898)
- Date
- 1857
- Medium
- albumen print from wet collodion negative
- Dimensions
- Image: 38.3 x 48.2 cm (15 1/16 x 19 in.); Matted: 61 x 76.2 cm (24 x 30 in.)
- Type
- Photograph
- Classification
- Photograph
- Department
- Photography
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 1992.236
More by Francis Frith in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000349
Powered by Art Trackers