The Sphinx – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition: ‘Frank Horvat. 50-65’ at Jeu de Paume, Château de Tours

Exhibition dates: 17th June – 30th October 2022

Curator: Virginia Chardin

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Muslim wedding, fiancé discovering his fiancée’s face in a mirror, Pakistan
1952
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Another male photographer, this time one who underlines the commonalities between his work as a photo-reporter and his work for fashion. But other than a few transcendent images (the Givenchy Hat duo in particular) I find his work to be very stylised, of the 1950s era, and not particularly memorable.

Can you imagine the artist Susan Meiselas in her work Carnival Strippers (1972-1975) taking an image of a naked female and then naming the work for themselves, “self-portrait”, Self-portrait with stripper, The Sphinx, Paris (1956, below) even as the photographer is obscured with the camera machine up to his face recording with the male gaze and the gaze of the camera the body of a anonymous woman? Just a stripper?

I know Meiselas’ work is from a later generation when feminism was rising but the objectification of the female body in Horvat’s work is unsavoury, even as the press release says he ensured the “complicit, amused and moving participation of the young women.” (To be complicit means to be involved with others in an activity that is unlawful or morally wrong)

From the look on the woman’s face, I don’t think so…

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Jeu de Paume for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Thus, putting aside the notions of truth or deception in the representation of women, and in leaning instead on this concept that Griselda Pollock called the woman-as-image, it becomes possible to analyze the mechanisms of fetishism, voyeurism and objectification who form and inform the representation of women.”

Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Representing Women: The Politics of representation of the self,” in Chair à canons. Photography, discourse, feminism, Paris, Textual, coll. “Photographic writing,” 2016, p. 234.

The Jeu de Paume pays tribute to the photographer Frank Horvat, who died on October 21, 2020 at the age of ninety-two, with an exhibition presented at the Château de Tours from June 17 to October 30, 2022. Accompanied by a monograph, it brings a renewed vision of the fiery activity of the photographer during his first fifteen years of career, from 1950 to 1965, a period during which he affirmed an extraordinary personality as author-reporter and fashion photographer.

Made from the archives kept by the author in his home-studio in Boulogne-Billancourt, the exhibition is based on period documents: vintage, publications, writings, in order to follow and explain the photographer’s approach, in the context of the evolution of the illustrated press at the time. He strives to discern the deep driving forces of the work and to bring out its strength and points of tension. He underlines the commonalities between his work as a photoreporter and his work for fashion. Fascination with beauty, the motif of the viewer-voyeur, attention to physical or amorous disorder, are some of the recurring themes of Frank Horvat, who appears above all as a photographer of the body and the intimate. It also reveals the melancholy facet of an independent and sometimes solitary author, living as an outsider despite his success as a fashion photographer.

The Jeu de Paume pays tribute to the photographer Frank Horvat, who died on October 21, 2020 at the age of ninety-two, with an exhibition presented at the Château de Tours from June 17 to October 30, 2022. Accompanied by a monograph, it brings a renewed vision of the fiery activity of the photographer during his first fifteen years of career, from 1950 to 1965, a period during which he asserted an extraordinary personality as author-reporter and fashion photographer.

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Howrah Bridge, Kolkata, India
1953-1954
vintage contact sheet

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Boxing fight between children, Cockney Borough of Lambeth, London, England
1955
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Prostitutes in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris
1955
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

1/ The beginnings of a photo-reporter 1928-1954

Francesco Horvat was born on April 28, 1928 in Abbazia, Italy (today Opatija in Croatia). Around 1951, he decided to become photo-reporter, meets Henri Cartier-Bresson, buys a Leica then embarks on a trip to Pakistan and India from 1952 to 1954. His subjects earned him publications in the international press and one of his images is selected for the exhibition “The Family of Man”, presented at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1955.

2/ London and Realities 1954-1959

In 1954, he moved to London for a few months, where the English inspire him with humorous images, even frankly ironic. Initiating new formal experiences,he crops his images for close-up effects, hardens his prints by accentuating the grain of the image and works his layouts. Settled in Paris at the end of 1955, Francesco, who now signs Frank Horvat, establishes ongoing relationships with the French monthly Réalités, for which he produced a report on pimping, then in 1959 social subjects on the Parisian suburbs, London or the Borinage.

3/ Telephoto Paris 1956

His wanderings in Paris led Frank Horvat to acquire a telephoto lens that he tests on the urban landscape. Intrigued by the effects he obtained from it, he experimented with high views, overlooking monuments and crossroads where crowds and vehicles intermingle. He is interested in graphic games drawn by the signs, the urban furniture, the roofs and the ubiquitous typography of the town. These images earned him significant recognition by international photography journals.

4/ Shows and spectators 1956-1958

In 1956, the author manages to get behind the scenes the Sphinx striptease cabaret, place Pigalle, and ensures the complicit, amused and moving participation of the young women. This series earned him orders from Jours de France for an “Evenings in Paris” section. The book I like striptease, published in 1962 by Rencontre à Lausanne with an amazing layout by the graphic designer Jacques Plancherel, initiator of the magazine Die Woche, brings together images from these series.

5/ Fashion on the street 1957-1961

In 1957, William Klein introduced Frank Horvat to Jacques Moutin, the artistic director of the magazine Jardin desModes, who offers to transpose the style of his views Parisians in fashion images. Taken with a Leica, without artificial light, the freshness of his images is a sensation, and other magazines appeal to him for his free and natural way to pose his models. He becomes the representative of a “reportage style” in fashion.

6/ Successful fashion photographer and muses 1960-1964

This room brings together some of the iconic images and sophisticated shots made by the photographer for British Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Most models represented are exceptional women who have experienced an unusual fate. Maggi Eckardt, Judy Dent, Simone d’Aillencourt, Benedetta Barzini, Deborah Dixon, Carol Lobravico, Vera Valdez, Iris Bianchi or China Machado are the heroines of this room. So many portraits of women only fashion images, these photographs demonstrate a collaborative complicity between the photographer and his models.

7/ A photographer’s world tour 1962-1963

In 1962, the German magazine Revue asked Frank Horvat to produce a report on large non-European cities. Staring games between men and women, fleeting intimacy between watched and watchers, the melancholy and solitude of bodies make this photographic essay one of the most personal of Frank Horvat. The gist of this report having never been published, the vintage prints presented in this room are therefore largely unpublished. Over there following years, Frank Horvat will hardly carry out any more reporting, apart from a few colour subjects for Réalités. This series thus ends his career as a photo-reporter for the press.

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Telephoto Paris, Strasbourg-Saint-Denis metro station, Paris
1956
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Telephoto Paris, traffic in front of Saint-Lazare station, Paris
1956
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Telephoto Paris, bus, Paris
1956
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Telephoto Paris, Christmas at Galeries Lafayette
1956
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
The Sphinx, Paris
1956
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Self-portrait with stripper, The Sphinx, Paris
1956
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
The Lido, Paris
1956
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

“If Horvat is a part, along with a few others, of a generation that has indeed renewed photography of fashion by desecrating the mannequin and mixing systematically life to artifice, he no doubt owes it to his training and his work as a photojournalist. This exhibition and this book, with largely unpublished content, focusing for the first time on its first fifteen years as a professional photographer who saw him go from fashionable reportage, precisely intend to reconcile the two sides of his work. On the one hand, his first works for the post-war European and then American press, in the lineage of its elders, Cartier-Bresson at the head, a time of trips that he himself called “the happiest period of his life”; on the other hand, fashion works and the intrusion of colour, which sometimes left him dissatisfied. However, in one case as in the other, the same attention, made of restraint, of empathy and a certain disenchanted sweetness, is brought to the world and, more particularly, to women and relations between the sexes, which are constants in his work – to which we will add, for fashion, a good dose of distance and humour.”

Quentin Bajac, “Foreword,” in Frank Horvat 50-65, Paris, Jeu de Paume / La Martiniere, 2022, p. 3.

The Jeu de Paume and the Château de Tours pay tribute to Frank Horvat who died on October 21, 2020. The exhibition focuses over his first fifteen years of work, during which he affirms an extraordinary personality of author-reporter and of a fashion photographer. Born in Italy in 1928, he started 1951 in Milan a career as a photojournalist which he pursues in Pakistan, India and England in the following years. His first images earned him numerous publications in the international press as well as participation in the famous “The Family of Man” exhibition presented at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in 1955.

Settled in Paris in 1955, he was quickly noticed by his telephoto photographs and his subjects on the Paris by night. Managing to capture close-up scenes of a rare intensity, he reveals himself as a photographer of the body and the intimate. This fascination will be found later in his images of fashion for Jardin des Modes, British Vogue or Harper’s Bazaar and in the hallucinatory vibrations of a world tour which he performed in 1962-1963, remained largely unknown. Game of glances, night shows, fragility of masks, complicity with the models, melancholy of the bodies and scintillation love troubles draw an introspective cartography of this photographer moved throughout his life by a inexhaustible quest for new experience.

Produced from the archives left by Horvat in his house-workshop in Boulogne-Billancourt, the exhibition includes over 170 vintage and modern prints. Accompanied publications and original documents, it provides a new light on the work of this major player in French and European photography and present, alongside emblematic images, sets of photographs less known or new. Are thus revealed the wealth and the singularity of a complex and multifaceted work, replaced in the context of the history of photography and the press illustrated post-war.

Exhibition curator: Virginia Chardin

“Photography, for me, was photo-reportage. My photos had to tell stories, like those that the editors of the Berliner Illustrierte, refugees in New York during the war, had taught editors to tell of Life, and that now all the magazines were trying to imitate. With a beginning, a middle, an end and a legend under each photo, so that readers still unaccustomed to this visual language can represent the world, whether magazines are sold and that their collaborators are adequately remunerated.”

Frank Horvat, “Autobiography,” undated manuscript, Boulogne-Billancourt, Studio Frank Horvat archives.

“When I first set foot there, Paris was for me the capital of the world. From fashion of course, but also those of painting, letters, shows and especially – from my perspective – photojournalism, because it was Magnum headquarters. I remember this month of July 1951 as of a triumphal progression: I attended the first Givenchy collection, at Fath’s ball (Dior’s rival), I was received in the editorial offices of Paris-Match and Réalités (which even kept some of my photos), I made the portrait of Maxime de la Falaise, muse of the Parisian intelligentsia, in her boudoir Île Saint-Louis. I told myself that this escalation could only end up at the office on Place Saint-Philippe du Roule, where Cartier-Bresson, every Wednesday at 10 a.m., received young photographers, and where he would certainly have invited me to join his pleiad.

It was a cold shower. “Do you work in 6 × 6? The good God didn’t put your eyes on your stomach! And use flash? This is an arbitrary intervention! And in colour? I would do, if I could have my own palette, but I will never use the Kodak one!” He turned over the pile of my prints, the top of the photos down, so that the expressions of the faces do not distract him from the analysis of the compositions, examined them one after the other, pointed out their faults and concludes: “You have understood nothing. Go to the Louvre and study the compositions of Poussin”.”

Frank Horvat, “Autobiography,” undated manuscript, Boulogne-Billancourt, Studio Frank Horvat archives.

“Following the advice of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Franco Horvat bought a Leica in Munich. He embarked in Trieste on a freighter bound for Karachi in the spring of 1952. This trip to Pakistan, which he will extend to India for two years following, allows him for the first time to give free rein to his imagination by looking for subjects to propose.

Most newspapers and agencies ask photographers to bring them complete reports, that is to say, successions of captioned images telling a story likely to be published on several pages. “The mould of the picture story imposed itself on all those who wanted to work for magazines, they could take advantage of it, a bit like the great filmmakers of Hollywood took advantage of box office constraints, or the Great Century playwrights of the rule of three units”. In Lahore, his intuition or his personal attractions lead him to the “red light district” of Hira Mandi (“market with diamonds”, in Urdu), place of prostitution but also of a annual party where exceptionally unveiled young girls and adorned dance and are exposed to the gaze of men, the latter obtaining at auction the right to converse with the families for a meeting or a marriage – a custom century against which the government is trying to fight. He also photographs opium and hashish smokers, a particular Muslim religious ceremony spectacular, and a wedding during which the fiancé discovers in a mirror the face of his bride. Formally, his images do not deviate from the framework imposed by the codes of the photojournalism of the time, but the choice of subjects reveals a intense fascination for the body and the intimate. The observed woman by men, the viewers themselves captured in their bewilderment, the play of looks between the two are motives that we will find in all of Horvat’s work. […]

Initially, Réalités commissioned a subject from him which going to fascinate him, on pimping in Paris. Remote or hidden behind the wheel of his car, he explores by night or day the streets and cafés of Pigalle, rue Saint-Denis, as well as the alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, in a sort of long tracking shot which is reminiscent of the world of cinema or the novel policeman. The magazine announces on the cover: “A document exceptional. Réalités denounces one of the biggest scandals in our time”. Frank Horvat’s archives keep period prints that he had made by Georges Fèvre, one of of the main printers of the Pictorial Service laboratory (Picto) created by Pierre Gassmann. The latter then has the exclusive Magnum prints and gathers around him many French and international authors. This report, which Anne by Mondenard and Michel Guerrin, authors of a book on this magazine, consider it “one of the most strong of Realities” testifying to the “tragic realism of Horvat”, is amazing. The theme of voyeurism captivates the photographer whom he follows for several weeks the thread of Paris by night: the Folies-Bergère, a premiere of the Lido to which assist Charlie Chaplin, Brigitte Bardot and Jean Cocteau, fairground booths for light shows, several boxes of striptease. In a masterful series on the Sphinx at Pigalle, the photographer manages to ensure, behind the scenes, the participation accomplice and moving strippers while leaving to their pathetic loneliness the spectators-voyeurs.”

Virginie Chardin, “Frank Horvat, the inner journey,” in Frank Horvat 50-65, Paris, Jeu de Paume / La Martinière, 2022, p. 13 and 17.

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Tan Arnold at The Smoking Dog, Paris, for Jardin des Modes
1957
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancour

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Fashion at Les Invalides, Paris, pour Jardin des Modes
1958
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Givenchy Hat, Paris, for Jardin des Modes
1958
Modern inkjet print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Givenchy Hat For Jardin des Modes
1958
Modern inkjet print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Mode à Longchamp, Givenchy hat, Paris For Jardin des Modes
1958
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Monique Dutto at the Metro exit, Paris, for Jours de France
1959
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Commuter train hall, Saint-Lazare station, for Réalités, Femina-Illustration
1959
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
City, London, England, for Realities
1959
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

“As far as I am concerned, I had not yet realized that I lived “in the century of the body” – as it was to be called, forty years later, an exhibition of photographs, where one of the present images was going to be in the right place – and I had no intention of investigating this theme. But I had just moved to Paris, the orders were not legion and it was difficult for me to refuse that of a “men’s magazine” of New York, which offered two hundred dollars for a report on “Parisian life”.

On the sidewalks of Pigalle, the braided doormen addressed me expressions of welcome, quickly transformed into pouts disdainful as soon as I expressed the wish to photograph behind the scenes. At two o’clock in the morning, having wiped the refusals of all the establishments of the square and the alleys neighbours, I decided to go to great lengths. I slipped a five thousand franc note – of the time – in the hand of the doorman of the Sphynx, although the neon lights of this place were a slightly bald and the man’s uniform not brand new. That has been perhaps these imperfections that decided him to pocket the money and to let me enter, without further ceremony, into the sanctuary for strippers.

These young ladies gave me a rather warm welcome, perhaps because that the audience that night was so gloomy that the mere fact that a paparazzo takes care of them gave them a little feeling important. For my part, I machine-gunned hastily, as sensing that my luck would not last. Effectively, at after four or five spools, one of them said to me: “What are you paying for?” The demand was not unjustified, but I I couldn’t satisfy her. I turned a deaf ear and, without waiting for the others to join in, beat a retreat. The next day, while going through the contacts, I realized that “I had a story” […].”

Frank Horvat, Strip-tease, Paris, Galerie Nina Verny, 2001, n. p.

“[…] for now, his work is leading him to acquire a telephoto lens, which he tests on the urban landscape. Intrigued by the effects he obtains from it, he then abandons the motif of cabarets and of the night to experience many views taken in height, on foot, and overlooking monuments and crossroads where crowds and vehicles intermingle. He is interested in games graphics drawn by the signs, the signage, the street furniture, rooftops and the ubiquitous typography in the city. Positioning himself in the middle of the crowd, he captures close-ups of faces or bends down to child’s height. The objectives of long focal length put on the market are then the subject of a real infatuation. Frank Horvat shows a selection of his images to Romeo Martinez, the editor-in-chief of Camera magazine who, enthusiastic, decides to devote an important article to them and to exhibit them at the first Biennale of photography in Venice. This recognition will be crucial for the rest of his career, although the technique and use the telephoto lens only interested him for a short time. It earned him interviews and portfolios in magazines international photography exhibitions and to be exhibited alongside authors like Peter Keetman or William Klein. The same moment, as the exhibition “The Family of Man” arrives at Paris and that Frank Horvat surveys the city with his telephoto lens, published by Editions du Seuil, the book on New York by William Klein, who won the Nadar Prize the following year. It’s a real stylistic revolution in the world of photography, which coincides with the end of the golden age of humanist photography and the decline of photojournalism, and which marks the beginning of a new era of the press, in close correlation with the explosion of the society of consumption.”

Virginie Chardin, “Frank Horvat, the inner journey,” in Frank Horvat 50-65, Paris, Jeu de Paume / La Martinière, 2022, p. 18-21.

“Models who take stereotypical expressions bore me. I forced them to become what I call naively “real women”. It was a war against a lot of people; I went against the preconceived image of editors, models, makeup artists and hairstylists… and even against the necessity of having to represent a illusion. Certainly, I understand the desire for idealization that exists in fashion photography. But I wanted to realize my ideal and not that of an era. I wish that the models do not look like models. I had at first introduces passers-by, dogs, characters into the street. And then I tried to find the same truth in the studio, using white backgrounds. Sometimes I was wrong. This form of democratization of fashion has been favored by political actions. But I arrived at the right time.”

Frank Horvat, “Photographing the relationship”, interview by Muriel Berthou Crestey, October 19, 2013 (online: https://regard.hypotheses.org/1232)

“The greatest models of Horvat possess a beauty nonconformist, and their personality shines through the pages magazines. However, the woman in his photograph most famous remains an enigma. She stares at the lens, one eye visible under one flawless brow bone, the other obscured by the cascade of white silk flowers from her Givenchy hat. Unusually, it is not she who concentrates the attention of the other protagonists: around her, the men in top hats point their binoculars in the distance, to a horse race.”

Susanna Brown, “A beautiful chimera: Frank Horvat and fashion,” in Frank Horvat 50-65, Paris, Jeu de Paume / La Martinière, 2022, p. 38.

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Simone d’Aillencourt with designer Hardy Friends drinking tea, British high fashion, London, England, for British Vogue
1961
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Deborah Dixon and Federico Fellini, Italian haute couture, for Harper’s Bazaar, Rome, Italy
1962
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Iris Bianchi and Agnès Varda, Paris, French haute couture, for Harper’s Bazaar
1962
Modern inkjet print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Deborah Dixon on the steps of Piazza di Spagna, Italian haute couture, Rome, Italy, for Harper’s Bazaar
1962
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Deborah Dixon eating spaghetti with writer Antero Piletti, Italian haute couture, Rome, Italy, for Harper’s Bazaar
1962
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Carol Lobravico au café de Flore, haute couture française, Paris, pour Harper’s Bazaar
1962
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Carol Lobravico et Iris Bianchi au café de Flore, haute couture française, Paris, for Harper’s Bazaar
1962
Gelatin silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

“This photo [“Hat Givenchy, Paris, for Jardin des Modes,” 1958] would become my [most] iconic image, that is to say the one most often associated with my name. Maybe that’s why she’s not among the ones I prefer, to the point that I’m almost annoyed when it’s designate as my masterpiece. Another reason for my reluctance is that it was not really my idea, but the one of the artistic director, who even made, before the session, a sketch, which I was supposed to get as close as I could. I have never liked being directed, to the point that the concept of an “artistic direction” seems to me a contradiction in the terms: can we direct art? On the other hand, I have to admit that Jacques Moutin did not lack good ideas, and that this one was excellent. I owe him a big part of the success of this image and the benefits it has earned me.”

Frank Horvat, A look at the 60s, Paris, Loft Publications, Cyel editions, 2012, ill. 37.

“Thus, putting aside the notions of truth or deception in the representation of women, and in leaning instead on this concept that Griselda Pollock called the woman-as-image, it becomes possible to analyze the mechanisms of fetishism, voyeurism and objectification who form and inform the representation of women.”

Abigail Solomon-Godeau, “Representing Women: The Politics of representation of the self,” in Chair à canons. Photography, discourse, feminism, Paris, Textual, coll. “Photographic writing,” 2016, p. 234.

“Life had finally arrived on newsstands, imitated in everything the “free world” by magazines of the same format, such as Match in Paris, Stern in Hamburg and Epoca in Milan. We admired the Magnum photographers – Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Seymour and Bischof – both artists and adventurers. Far from a stopgap measure, photojournalism appeared to me as a way to reach my ideal from a creative activity to my desire to travel the world.”

Frank Horvat, “Pre-history,” in Frank Horvat. Please don’t smile, Berlin, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2015, p. 232.

“If I had to sum up the photogenicity of Paris in a few words, I would would say that it comes from its facets. We can realize that on any street corner, looking in any direction through a viewfinder: details accumulate in the frame and repeat themselves as in a game of mirrors, disparate but always granted between them […]. The effect can be enhanced by a focal length of telephoto lens, which crushes perspectives and tightens distances.”

Frank Horvat, “Cities and Languages,” in Frank Horvat, Paris-Londres, London-Paris, 1952-1962, Paris, Paris Museums, Carnavalet Museum, 1996, p. 6-7.

“The spectator is a recurring presence in the work of Frank Horvat, and we could interpret this male figure anonymous as a representation of the photographer himself. In his exploration of the dichotomy between manifest gaze and hidden gaze, he often uses reflective surfaces, exploiting the properties of the mirror which induce a disturbance of three-dimensional space and a fragmentation of the picture plane.”

Susanna Brown, “A beautiful chimera: Frank Horvat and fashion,” in Frank Horvat 50-65, Paris, Jeu de Paume / La Martiniere, p. 33.

“For the “continental” that I was, England in the 1950s was as exotic as India – my teenage dreams in less. Immigration and globalization not yet on the agenda, the male population was divided into two classes: those who wore a cap and who in the métro – the tube – read the Daily Mirror, and those who wore the bowler hat and read the Times (whose titles were inside, the first page being reserved for small advertisement). The social class of women was recognized less easily: most looked like faded flowers, wore little hats and knitted. The light of a sky of lead suited me almost better than that of the sheer sun, but I know my London pictures stayed closer caricature than miracle: I had neither the knowledge nor the imagination to superimpose on this universe another grid than that of an ironic look.

In Paris, where I transferred myself the following year, it was all contrary: the references jostled, to the point of seeming sometimes too easy. Montmartre stairs, children brandishing chopsticks, the street lamps in the fog and the fairgrounds inevitably reminded me of the movies of the 1930s, but also the so-called humanist photographers who were inspired by it and of which I did not share some tenderness. Other associations of ideas, however, were irresistible. The gaze of a passer-by as in The Flowers of Evil: “O you whom I had loved, oh you who knew it”. The ghosts of demolished houses, like in Malta Laurids Brigge: “…it wasn’t, so to speak, the first wall of the remaining houses, but the last wall of the old. We saw the inside. We could see on the different floors the walls where hangings had remained pasted, here and there the beginning of a floor or a ceiling…” And of course the Mirabeau d’Apollinaire bridge, the grand boulevards of novels by Balzac, the Quai des Orfèvres by Edgar Poe, coffee Flore de Sartre… To literary memories were added the seductions of shop windows, restaurant menus, posters theater, and of course and above all women, interviews and unapproachable behind car windows or disturbing by their availability on the sidewalks of rue Saint-Denis.

For me, these were not so much reporting themes, as I had found in India and England, only entries in the diary of my wonders, my desires, of my fears and my mistakes. As were, on other registers, the subjects of the images on the run from Cartier-Bresson and Boubat, for whom photojournalism was, in the end, only a pretext for their own quests – or simply a livelihood.”

Frank Horvat, “Autobiography,” undated manuscript, Boulogne-Billancourt, archives from Studio Frank Horvat.

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Christmas night, couple dancing in sailor bar, Calcutta, India
1962
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Department store, Tokyo, Japan
1963
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Couple dancing in a gafeira (popular ball), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1963
Modern silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
15th anniversary celebration, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1963
Silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Entrance to Luna Park, Sydney, Australia
1963
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat (Italian, 1928-2020)
Lovers, Sydney, Australia
1963
Vintage silver print
© Studio Frank Horvat, Boulogne-Billancourt

Frank Horvat Photography, 1955

Frank Horvat Jardin des Modes, France, 1958

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Book review: ‘Walter Mittelholzer Revisited’ from the photo archive of Walter Mittelholzer. Scheidegger & Spiess publishers (2017)

December 2017

Scheidegger & Spiess (publisher)
Walter Mittelholzer Revisited from the photo archive of Walter Mittelholzer (front cover)
Edited by Michael Gasser and Nicole Graf
1st edition, 2017
Pictorial Worlds: Photographs from the image Archive, ETH-Bibliothek Volume 6
Text English and German
Hardback
192 pages, 47 colour and 158 b/w illustrations
20 x 26cm
ISBN 978-3-85881-543-9

Do you have a new book fetish? I know I do!

I just love the feel of a brand new, unopened book. The density and quality of the boards, the dynamics of the graphics on the cover… and then, opening the book for the first time, the thickness of the paper, the typography and layout, and the quality of the photographic printing. But above all, it is the smell of a new book that is so intoxicating. I like nothing better than to stick my nose into a new book and savor the smell.

Every new book is different. Each has their own unique aroma, which is caused by a number of chemical reactions used when they are manufactured. “The smell of new books can be attributed to three factors: the paper itself (it smells good because of the chemicals used to manufacture it), the ink used to print the book, and the adhesives used in the process of book-binding.” Which brings me to the book under review today, Walter Mittelholzer Revisited from the photo archive of Walter Mittelholzer, published by Scheidegger & Spiess (2017).

This just under A4 sized hardback book is handsomely produced by Scheidegger & Spiess, No. 6 in the Pictorial Worlds: Photographs from the image Archive, ETH-Bibliothek series. It feels good and solid in the hand. The 23cm thick book has a plain white cover with minimal text. Inset into an embossed area of the cover is a photographic print of Mittelholzer’s Flugplatz in Addis Abeba [Airfield in Addis Ababa] c. 1934. This is an elegant opening statement (see above).

Thick boards lead to plain, light grey endpapers, and on to the pages of the book themselves: excellent quality paper with a slightly textured surface with eminently readable typography. The Editors Foreword and Introduction (with bibliography), printed in both German and English, takes up the first 47 pages of the 192 page book. Images on these pages are rather small and are inset into the text with titles underneath; footnotes are at the bottom of each page.

As for the images themselves, the are well printed within the body of the book, mainly four horizontal images per page with vertical images one to a page. Colour saturation and reproduction is excellent with the images moving from cool, blue tones to warmer yellows and browns. Contrary to what the name suggests, black and white photography is never truly black and white and there are many variations of colour in black and white prints including split toning (a mixture of cool and warm tones together). The printing in this book perfectly captures the colour tonality of the original photographs. Large photographs are printed across the gutter of the book. In the main this works reasonably well, but on occasion (such as the photograph on p. 110 of an African sitting on the ground in camp), the gutter runs right through the subjects’ body, rending the image almost unreadable. In this instance, a fold out of the photograph with the fold repositioned to avoid the figure would have been a desirable outcome.

In terms of the work itself, one cannot underestimate the determination and courage that Mittelholzer possessed in undertaking dangerous journeys through various continents early in the 20th century to document the life of people and place. The reliability of the aircraft, and the hostility of some of the population were constant threats: you only have to look at the photograph Captain Wood and Wegmann still found a cozy spot in the cabin filled with gasoline and oil barrels (1930-31, below) to understand the inherent dangers of flying in those days, surrounded by gasoline and oil barrels. While it could be said that these photographs are just “tourist” photos and Mittelholzer a keen media entrepreneur, marketing “the pictures of his travels to Spitsbergen, Persia or Abyssinia on all channels: in books, films and in the press” – they rise above the purely commercial in their use of aerial photography to transcend and abstract the landscape into pattern and form. The “airplane eye,” a symbiosis of man and machine, was a way of collapsing space… “The verticals that had hitherto defined the artistic gaze had suddenly become obsolete. The tilting of viewer space and oblique perspectives from both above and below were elevated to a new program for both architecture and art.” (p. 35)

Less savoury is Mittelholzer’s patronising view of Africa and its peoples and cultures, even as he and his fellow travellers constantly searched for the most “natural”, the most “authentic” Africa (in their eyes). From a contemporary perspective, these photographs must always be looked at through the prism of colonialism, for this is a white, European male view of these continents and their people. Today, the colonial stereotypes implicit in the photographs are as strong as ever: black / white, male / female, empowered / disempowered seen through the male gaze. More troubling still, and something the Introduction does not shy away from, is Mittelholzer’s connections to the National Socialist party in Germany, the Nazis.

“His images also won approval of the Fascists. His contribution to the German anthology Flug und Wolken published after the Nazis seized power in fact comprised not just photographs but also one of the three prefaces, the other two being the work of Herman Göring, the “Third Reich’s” commander-in chief of the Luftwaffe, and Italo Balbo, Fascist Italy’s aviation minister. Göring for his part lavished praised on the “high artistic appeal” of a book showing the beauty of the “conquered world of the clouds.” (p. 35) You could also add, the conquered lands of the people – for Germany, Britain, Italy and France all had colonies in Africa. His flights in 1924 to Spitsbergen to assist Polar explorer Roald Amundsen and a year later to deliver a plane to Persia were both undertaken for the German aircraft manufacturer Junkers.

Reading between the lines, Mittelholzer seems to have been untroubled by his relationship with the Nazis, perhaps even sympathetic to their cause? His celebrity status allowed him access to elite circles, people such as Baron Louis von Rothschild, socialites, bankers and publishers to fund his expeditions. This state of affairs reminds me of that celebrated German photographer, Leni Riefenstahl – climbing on the back of ambition and closeness to power, whilst denying that she did anything wrong or knew of the despicable acts that were being perpetrated under the National Socialist regime. In the end it’s all about ambition and ego and what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals. Bear that in mind when you are looking at these images.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Scheidegger & Spiess for the review copy of the book, and for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Pictures from Cape Town to Spitsbergen: How aviation pioneer and photographer Walter Mittelholzer became a media entrepreneur.

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Castell in Aleppo
1925
Persia flight 1924-1925
Silver gelatin photograph
12 x 17 cm

Entrance to the citadel of Aleppo, 1925. The citadel is one of the oldest fortresses in the world; its origins can be traced back to the 3rd millennium B.C. The ongoing Syrian Civil War has left it badly damaged.

The Citadel of Aleppo is a large medieval fortified palace in the centre of the old city of Aleppo, northern Syria. It is considered to be one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. Usage of the Citadel hill dates back at least to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Subsequently occupied by many civilizations including the Greeks, Byzantines, Ayyubids and Mamluks, the majority of the construction as it stands today is thought to originate from the Ayyubid period. An extensive conservation work took place in the 2000s by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in collaboration with Aleppo Archeological Society. Dominating the city, the Citadel is part of the Ancient City of Aleppo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. The Citadel has received significant damage in the ongoing Syrian Civil War.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (2 April 1894 – 9 May 1937) was a Swiss aviation pioneer. He was active as a pilot, photographer, travel writer, as well as of the first aviation entrepreneurs. Mittelholzer was born on 2 April 1894 in St. Gallen, the son of a baker, earned his private pilot’s license in 1917. In 1918 he completed his instruction as a military pilot.

On 5 November 1919 he co-founded an air-photo and passenger flight business, Comte, Mittelholzer, and Co. In 1920 this firm merged with the financially stronger Ad Astra Aero. Mittelholzer was the director and head pilot of Ad Astra Aero, which later became Swissair.

He made the first north-south flight across Africa. It took him 77 days. Mittelholzer started in Zürich on 7 December 1926, flying via Alexandria and landing in Cape Town on 21 February 1927. Earlier, he had been the first to do serious aerial reconnaissance of Spitsbergen, in a Junkers monoplane, in 1923. On 08 January 1930 he became the first person to fly over Mount Kilimanjaro; he planned to fly over Mount Everest later in 1930. In 1931, Mittelholzer was appointed technical director of the new airline called Swissair, formed from the merger of Ad Astra Aero and Balair. Throughout his life he published many books of aerial photographs and marketed his expeditions through films and the media as well. He died in 1937 in a climbing accident on an expedition in the Hochschwab massif in southwest face of Stangenwand in Styria, Austria.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Buschehr aus 800 m Höhe
1925
Persia flight 1924-1925
Silver gelatin photograph
12 x 17cm

The peninsula with Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, 1925

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Flugplatz Isfahan mit A 20 am Boden [Airfield Isfahan with A 20 on the ground]
1925
Persia flight 1924-1925
Silver gelatin photograph
12 x 17cm

Isfahan, historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan, Esfahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 kilometres (211 miles) south of Tehran.

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Wilde Schlussszene des Opfertanzes [Wild final scene of the sacrificial dance]
1926-1927
Silver gelatin photograph

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Die Expeditionsteilnehmer: René Gouzy, Arnold Heim, Walter Mittelholzer, Hans Hartmann
1926-1927
Silver gelatin photograph

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Dornier Merkur, CH-171 “Switzerland” der Ad Astra Aero AG auf dem Zürichsee vor dem Afrikaflug
[Dornier Merkur, CH-171 “Switzerland” of Ad Astra Aero AG on Lake Zurich before the Africa flight]
c. 1926
Silver gelatin photograph
13 x 18cm

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Westabsturz des Mokattamgebirge mit Niltal [Western Plateau of the Mokattam Mountains with Nile Valley]
1929
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

The plateau of Mokattam near Cairo, 1930. The balloonist Eduard Spelterini also photographed this landscape from the air during his 1904 expedition to Egypt.

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Fremdenverkehr vor der Sphinx [Tourism in front of the Sphinx]
1929
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

The Pyramids of Giza with the Sphinx and tourists, 1930. The archaeological excavations there began with Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign of 1798.

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Totentempel Ramses III., Theben [Mortuary temple of Ramses III, Thebes]
1929
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937) was a pioneering aviator and cofounder of Switzerland’s legendary airline Swissair. From his earliest flights, he was also an avid aerial photographer, and his spectacular views of the Swiss Alps have been popular ever since he began publishing them in the 1920s. Mittelholzer also participated in expeditions to more distant locations, supporting his activities by selling photographs and receiving donations from patrons. Today, the Mittelholzer archive is part of the vast image archive at ETH Bibliothek, the main library at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).

The sixth volume in Scheidegger & Spiess’s Pictorial Worlds series, Walter Mittelholzer Revisited reproduces two hundred of the most striking and historically significant photographs from the archive. Together, the photographs document Mittelholzer’s extensive travels, including trips to what is today Iran, Ethiopia, and the Svalbard Islands of northern Norway, as well as his 1926-7 trip to Africa on the seaplane Switzerland, which made Mittelholzer a household name both in aviation and photography. Rounding out the book is an essay that revisits Mittelholzer’s activities from a contemporary perspective, with a focus on the issue of colonialism and his patronising view of Africa and its peoples and cultures. The book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of photography.

Walter Mittelholzer (1894-1937), aviation pioneer and one of the co-founders of Swissair, is best known as a great aerial photographer. In particular, his photographs of the Swiss Alps are still present today. Less well known are Mittelholzer’s flight expeditions abroad, with which he also proved to be a keen media entrepreneur. He marketed the pictures of his travels to Spitsbergen, Persia or Abyssinia on all channels: in books, films and in the press. The breakthrough came Mittelholzer with the Africa flight 1926/27 in the seaplane Switzerland from Zurich to Cape Town. Mittelholzer’s flights were financially supported by important industrialists and bankers of the time and had the declared intention of making aviation popular in Switzerland.

The new volume of the series Bilderwelten sheds light on 200 media images and an essay on Mittelholzer’s media presence, inquires into the African image of the aviation and photo pioneer and tells how Swissair stood out against a largely colonialistic backdrop.

Pictorial Worlds: Photographs from the Image archive, ETH-Bibliothek, Vol. 6

Edited by Michael Gasser and Nicole Graf
1st edition, 2017
Text English and German
Hardback
192 pages, 47 colour and 158 b/w illustrations
20 x 26 cm
ISBN 978-3-85881-543-9

Imagery. Photographs from the image archive of the ETH-Bibliothek. Volume 6

Text from the Scheidegger & Spiess website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Krater des Kibo
Teil des Kilimanjaro-Massivs [Part of the Kilimanjaro massif]
1930
Silver gelatin photograph
13 x 18cm

On his Kilimanjaro flight Mittelholzer flew over both Mount Kibo (this image) and Mount Kenya, one of Africa’s highest peaks, 1930.

Mount Kilimanjaro with its three volcanic cones, “Kibo”, “Mawenzi”, and “Shira”, is a dormant volcano in Tanzania. It is the highest mountain in Africa, and rises approximately 4,900 metres (16,100 ft) from its base to 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) above sea level. The first persons known to have reached the summit of the mountain were Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller in 1889. The mountain is part of the Kilimanjaro National Park and is a major climbing destination. The mountain has been the subject of many scientific studies because of its shrinking glaciers and disappearing ice fields.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Tanken in Mongalla [Refuelling in Mongalla]
1930
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

Refuelling stop at Mongalla, Sudan, 1930. Oil and gasoline were supplied to the various way stations by the Anglo-Dutch company Shell.

Mongalla or Mangalla is a community in Jubek State in South Sudan, on the east side of the Bahr al Jebel or White Nile river. It lies about 75 km by road northeast of Juba. The towns of Terekeka and Bor lie downstream, north of Mongalla.

During the colonial era, Mongalla was capital of Mongalla Province, which reached south to Uganda and east towards Ethiopia. On 7 December 1917 the last of the northern Sudanese troops were withdrawn from Mongalla, replaced by Equatorial troops. These southern and at least nominally Christian troops remained the only permanent garrison of the town and province until their mutiny in August 1955. Mongalla and the surrounding province was then absorbed into Equatoria Province in 1956. The town was taken and retaken more than once during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005).

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Massaifrauen mit Kupferringen als Schmuck [Massai women with copper rings as jewellery]
1930
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

The Maasai are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They are among the best known local populations due to their residence near the many game parks of the African Great Lakes, and their distinctive customs and dress. The Maasai speak the Maa language (ɔl Maa), a member of the Nilo-Saharan family that is related to Dinka and Nuer. They are also educated in the official languages of Kenya and Tanzania, Swahiliand English. The Maasai population has been reported as numbering 841,622 in Kenya in the 2009 census…

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
In der mit Benzin- und Ölfässern gefüllten Kabine haben Captain Wood and Wegmann doch noch ein gemütliches Plätzchen gefunden
[Captain Wood and Wegmann still found a cozy spot in the cabin filled with gasoline and oil barrels]
1930-1931
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

Mittelholzer always flew with a copilot so that he could take photographs while in the air. Here, he himself is at the controls. Seated in the cabin alongside the oil drums are the mechanic Werner Wegmann and the expedition organiser Georg Wood, 1930/31.

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Marrakech aus 200 m Höhe
1930-1931
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

Like many Moroccan cities, Marrakesh comprises an old fortified city packed with vendors and their stalls (the medina), bordered by modern neighbourhoods, the most prominent of which is Gueliz. Today it is one of the busiest cities in Africa and serves as a major economic centre and tourist destination. Tourism is strongly advocated by the reigning Moroccan monarch, Mohammed VI, with the goal of doubling the number of tourists visiting Morocco to 20 million by 2020. Despite the economic recession, real estate and hotel development in Marrakesh has grown dramatically in the 21st century. Marrakesh is particularly popular with the French, and numerous French celebrities own property in the city. Marrakesh has the largest traditional market (souk) in Morocco, with some 18 souks selling wares ranging from traditional Berber carpets to modern consumer electronics. Crafts employ a significant percentage of the population, who primarily sell their products to tourists.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Kano
1930-1931
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

Kano is the state capital of Kano State in North West, Nigeria. It is situated in the Sahelian geographic region, south of the Sahara. Kano is the commercial nerve centre of Northern Nigeria and is the second largest city in Nigeria, after Lagos. The Kano metropolis initially covered 137 square kilometres (53 square miles), and comprised six local government areas (LGAs) … The total area of Metropolitan Kano is now 499 square kilometres (193 square miles), with a population of 2,828,861 as of the 2006 Nigerian census. The principal inhabitants of the city are the Hausa people. As in most parts of northern Nigeria, the Hausa language is widely spoken in Kano. The city is the capital of the Kano Emirate.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Typen aus dem Atlas: der rastlose Händler [Types from the Atlas: the restless dealer]
1930-1931
Silver gelatin photograph
9 x 12cm

Berbers at a cattle market in the High Atlas, 1930/31

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Felsgrab Khazne al-Firaun, Petra [Rock Tomb Khazne al-Firaun, Petra]
1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6cm

Four-day visit to the ancient, rock-hewn city of Petra, 1934. Petra was rediscovered for the Europeans by the Basel adventurer Jean Louis Burckhardt in 1812. Mittelholzer often followed the routes taken by earlier explorers of Asia and Africa and saw his own “expeditions” as continuing their tradition.

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Kaiser Haile Selassie, Addis Abeba
c. 1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6 cm

Haile Selassie I (23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975), born Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael, was Ethiopia’s regent from 1916 to 1930 and emperor from 1930 to 1974. He also served as Chairperson of the Organisation of African Unity from 25 May 1963 to 17 July 1964 and 5 November 1966 to 11 September 1967. He was a member of the Solomonic Dynasty. …

Among the Rastafari movement, whose followers are estimated at between two and four million, Haile Selassie is revered as the returned messiah of the Bible, God incarnate. Beginning in Jamaica in the 1930s, the Rastafari movement perceives Haile Selassie as a messianic figure who will lead a future golden age of eternal peace, righteousness, and prosperity. Haile Selassie was an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian throughout his life. He is a defining figure in Ethiopian history. Haile Selassie died on 27 August 1975 at the age of 83, following a coup d’état.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Itu-Mann vom Südosten Abessiniens [Itu man from southeastern Abyssinia]
c. 1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6cm

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Dankali-Mädchen [Dankali girl]
c. 1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6cm

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Flugplatz in Addis Abeba [Airfield in Addis Ababa]
c. 1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6cm

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Übergabe von Schild und Degen an Walter Mittelholzer [Handover of shield and sword to Walter Mittelholzer]
c. 1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6cm

Walter Mittelholzer (Swiss, 1894-1937)
Sudanesischer Kolonialsoldat des englischen Imperiums [Sudanese colonial soldier of the English Empire]
c. 1934
Silver gelatin photograph
6 x 6cm

Scheidegger & Spiess website

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Exhibition: ‘Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East’ at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

Exhibition dates: 7th November 2014 – 22nd February 2015

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
South West View of the Parthenon [on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece]
31 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
23.8 x 29.4cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Prince saw the Parthenon on 30 May, the day before Bedford took this photograph. The group drove there in a carriage at 8am, stopping on the way to see a newly excavated amphitheatre. At the Acropolis, the royal party was joined by the Director of Antiquities who showed them the site. The Prince described the ruins as ‘beautiful’.

The photograph is signed, dated and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens 163’, 31 May 1862. See RCIN 2861702 for another print of the same image.

These photographs are absolutely glorious!

Bedford had one advantage… what subject matter to work with. The quality is outstanding and the images really bring these treasures alive. The photographs breathe history, but they also breathe the space and light that surround these great monuments. It takes a special skill as an artist to position the camera in just the right place – to tension the image, to let it breathe, to capture the magic of their continued existence – like Charles Marville and Eugène Atget did with the streets of Old Paris. You can see why Francis Bedford was considered one of the finest landscape photographers in Victorian England.

Just look at the space in photographs such as Acropolis and Temple of Jupiter Olympus (31 May 1862, below) and, my favourite, Tombs of the Memlooks at Cairo (25 Mar 1862, below). In the latter, vibrations in the energy of the air and the earth – oscillating at numerous frequencies simultaneously – flow towards the viewer like a sound wave, akin to musical harmonics. These works veritably sing to you. You only have to look at the stereograph by an anonymous photographer of the same subject to realise what a master photographer like Bedford can achieve.

Please look at these photographs at the large size. They are truly stunning.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to The Queen’s Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“This exhibition follows the journey taken by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in 1862, as he undertook a four month tour around the Middle East. Seen through the photographs of Francis Bedford (1815-94), the first photographer to travel on a royal tour, it explores the cultural and political significance Victorian Britain attached to the region, which was then as complex and contested as it remains today.

The tour took the Prince to Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece where he met rulers, politicians and other notable figures, and travelled in a manner not associated with royalty – by horse and camping out in tents. On the royal party’s return to England, Francis Bedford’s work was displayed in what was described as “the most important photographic exhibition that has hitherto been placed before the public.”

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Portions of the Frieze of the Parthenon [Athens, Greece]
31 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
16.7 x 29.2cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The photograph shows marble blocks from the frieze that ran around all four sides of the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. The frieze was sculpted probably between 438 and 432 BC. In the early 19th century, Thomas Bruce the 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving marble blocks from the Parthenon. In 1816 they ended up in the British Museum. The head of the Prince’s party, Robert Bruce, was the younger son of the 7th Earl. Bedford photographed several of the blocks which remained in Athens.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens’, 31 May 1862. See RCIN 2861704 for another print of the same image.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Caryatid porch of the Erechtheum [Athens, Greece]
30 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
24.6 x 29.5cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

After leaving Constantinople, the royal party sailed to Athens. Their first stop upon arrival was to visit the King and Queen of Greece. They then spent two days sightseeing and shopping before rejoining the Royal Yacht. The Erechtheum, set on the Acropolis, is a Greek temple probably built between 421 and 406 BC. The figures of six maidens (the ‘caryatids’) are used to support the porch.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens’, 30 May 1862. See RCIN 2861708 for another print of this image.

The best-known and most-copied examples are those of the six figures of the Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens. One of those original six figures, removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, is now in the British Museum in London. The Acropolis Museum holds the other five figures, which are replaced onsite by replicas. The five originals that are in Athens are now being exhibited in the new Acropolis Museum, on a special balcony that allows visitors to view them from all sides. The pedestal for the Caryatid removed to London remains empty. From 2011 to 2015, they were cleaned by a specially constructed laser beam, which removed accumulated soot and grime without harming the marble’s patina. Each Caryatid was cleaned in place, with a television circuit relaying the spectacle live to museum visitors.

Although of the same height and build, and similarly attired and coiffed, the six Caryatids are not the same: their faces, stance, draping, and hair are carved separately; the three on the left stand on their right foot, while the three on the right stand on their left foot. Their bulky, intricately arranged hairstyles serve the crucial purpose of providing static support to their necks, which would otherwise be the thinnest and structurally weakest part.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Acropolis and Temple of Jupiter Olympus [Olympieion, Athens]
31 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
22.0 x 29.4cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The columns in the foreground are part of the remains of the Olympieion, also known as the Temple of Olympic Zeus. This vast temple was dedicated to Zeus, King of the Gods. During the Roman period, it was renowned as the largest temple in Greece. The Acropolis, with the ruins of the Parthenon, can be seen beyond.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens’, 31 May 1862. See RCIN 2861698 for another print of this image.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Temple of Jupiter from the north west [Baalbek, Lebanon]
3 May 1862
Albumen print
23.6 x 29.3cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The royal party spent about a day and a half exploring Baalbek. Most of the time was spent in and around this temple. The Prince wrote in his journal that ‘Mr Bedford took some excellent views of it, which will be a great addition to his collection of photographs.’

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Baalbec’. The number in the Day & Son series is 111.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Temple of the Sun and Temple of Jupiter [Baalbek, Lebanon]
4 May 1862
Albumen print
24.3 x 28.8 cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The six standing columns are all that remain of the colonnade that ran around the outside of the Temple of Jupiter. The columns are the largest in the world, at a height of 22.9 metres. A legend about the founding of Baalbek stated that a race of giants constructed the buildings.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Baalbec’. It is number 106 in the Day & Son series.

.
In 334 BC, Alexander The Great conquered Baalbek and the process of Hellenization began. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies of Egypt invaded Baalbek and they renamed it to Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. They identified Baal with Zeus and the temple was mentioned as a place of oracular divination. During the Greek era, the court was enlarged and a podium was completed to support a classic temple that was never built.

During the Roman era, Baalbek entered its golden age. In 15 BC, Julius Caesar settled in Baalbek and began the construction of a temple complex consisting of three temples: Jupiter (God of sky and thunder), Bacchus (God of agriculture and wine), and Venus (God of love and beauty). On a nearby hill, the Romans built the temple of Mercury. The construction of the temple complex was completed in several phases over three centuries during the Roman Empire.

Extract from Lauren Zak, “Baalbek: The Unsolved Enigma,” on the Exposing the Truth website, June 23, 2014 [Online] Cited 12/07/2021

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Colossi on the plain of Thebes [Colossi of Memnon]
17 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.7 x 28.6cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The ‘colossi’ are two statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, standing about 18 m (60 ft) high. They are all that remain of a large mortuary temple to Amenhotep, originally serving as guardians to the entrance of the temple. During the Roman period, one of the statues was believed to ‘sing’ at dawn and thus was linked to the legendary figure of Memnon. As the son of Eos the dawn, he was believed to greet her each morning with a sigh.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative. The number in the Day & Son series is 38.

The twin statues depict Amenhotep III (fl. 14th century BC) in a seated position, his hands resting on his knees and his gaze facing eastwards (actually ESE in modern bearings) towards the river. Two shorter figures are carved into the front throne alongside his legs: these are his wife Tiy and mother Mutemwiya. The side panels depict the Nile god Hapy.

The statues are made from blocks of quartzite sandstone which was quarried at el-Gabal el-Ahmar (near modern-day Cairo) and transported 675 km (420 mi) overland to Thebes. (They are too heavy to have been transported upstream on the Nile.) The blocks used by later Roman engineers to reconstruct the northern colossus may have come from Edfu (north of Aswan). Including the stone platforms on which they stand – themselves about 4 m (13 ft) – the colossi reach a towering 18 m (60 ft) in height and weigh an estimated 720 tons each The two figures are about 15 m (50 ft) apart.

Both statues are quite damaged, with the features above the waist virtually unrecognisable. The southern statue is a single piece of stone, but the northern figure has a large extentive crack in the lower half and above the waist consists of 5 tiers of stone. These upper levels consist of a different type of sandstone, and are the result of a later (Roman Empire) reconstruction attempt. It is believed that originally the two statues were identical to each other, although inscriptions and minor art may have varied.

The original function of the Colossi was to stand guard at the entrance to Amenhotep’s memorial temple (or mortuary temple): a massive construct built during the pharaoh’s lifetime, where he was worshipped as a god-on-earth both before and after his departure from this world. In its day, this temple complex was the largest and most opulent in Egypt. Covering a total of 35 hectares (86 acres), even later rivals such as Ramesses II’s Ramesseum or Ramesses III’s Medinet Habu were unable to match it in area; even the Temple of Karnak, as it stood in Amenhotep’s time, was smaller.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid and two lesser Pyramids, Ghizeh, Egypt
4 March 1862
Albumen print
23.1 x 29.5cm
Acquired by King Edward VII when Prince of Wales, 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Prince and his companions visited the pyramids on camels, which the Prince described as ‘not at all an unpleasant mode of conveyance’. They viewed the Sphinx just before sunset and decided to set up an encampment below the pyramids where they slept for the night in order to climb the Great Pyramid before sunrise the following day.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Pyramids Gizeh’. The number in the Day & Son series is 14.

In 1862, the 20-year-old Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (and the future King Edward VII), embarked on a tour of the Middle East, accompanied by the photographer Francis Bedford. The resulting images, produced little more than 20 years after the arrival of photography, were the first-ever visual record of a royal tour.

A new exhibition Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East on view at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace this Friday reveals the Prince’s journey through Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece in over 100 spectacular photographs.

The Prince of Wales’s four-month tour, the first official royal tour of the Middle East, had been carefully planned by his parents to occupy him after university and before he was married. Despite Prince Albert’s sudden death just two months earlier in December 1861, Queen Victoria was determined that her son’s visit should go ahead. The Prince travelled in a manner unassociated with royalty at the time, by horse and camping in tents, and met rulers, politicians and other notable figures throughout his journey. He diligently recorded his travels in a private journal, which is on show for the first time.

Photography of a royal tour was a new concept, inspired in part by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s avid interest in the medium. Francis Bedford had already impressed the Queen with his photographs of places associated with Prince Albert’s childhood in Germany, an earlier royal commission. In mid-February 1862, the Photographic News announced that the Prince of Wales was to be accompanied by ‘eight gentlemen only’, including Mr Bedford, on a tour to be undertaken ‘in as private a manner as possible’. The presence of a photographer was “the first public act which illustrates that the heir to England’s throne takes as deep an interest in photography as his late royal father.”

The main purpose of Bedford’s work was to capture historic and sacred landscapes – the young Prince and his companions appear in only three of the 191 surviving photographs. Two of these were taken in Egypt, showing the party in front of the pyramids at Giza and at the Temple of Amun at Karnak, ancient Thebes. In the third, they are having lunch under a fig tree at Capernaum, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The rest of the photographs reflect a growing public demand for romantic images of biblical sites, Egyptian and Greek ruins, and mosques. By the 1860s leisure travel to the Middle East was increasing, stimulated by major archaeological discoveries in the region. The introduction of steamships to Alexandria in 1840 had cut journey times and made the area more accessible for European pilgrims and tourists.

In his lifetime, Francis Bedford was considered one of the greatest British photographers, and on his return from the Middle East many of his photographs of the royal tour were exhibited to the public in a gallery on New Bond Street. Among those now on display for the first time since then are views of the Colossi of Memnon and of the Temple of Horus at Edfu on the west bank of the Nile, in which Bedford’s portable darkroom can be seen in the shadow of the temple. Bedford would have had to take a large amount of equipment with him, including plates, tripods, lenses, chemicals and a darkroom, as well as the camera itself.

A number of antiquities collected by the Prince also are on display for the first time. They include an ancient Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the Amduat, a funerary text which describes the journey of regeneration of Re, the Egyptian sun god, and pottery vessels from an excavation on the island of Rhodes. Also among the objects is a marble fragment from Syria inscribed From the remains of the Christian Quarter at Damascus, May. 1862. Syria, reflecting the devastation caused by the 1860 conflict between the Christian Maronites and the Druze, when the Christian quarter in Damascus was destroyed. A marble bust of Princess Alexandra, who married the Prince the following year, shows her wearing a brooch set with one of the scarabs acquired by the Prince in Egypt, which is also on display.

Sophie Gordon, Royal Collection Trust, curator of the exhibition, said, “Today royal tours are widely photographed, and the pictures are transmitted instantly around the world. Bedford’s photographs were not seen by the public until over a month after the royal party’s return to England, but his presence on the tour was widely reported in the press. The intense interest in his work at the time shows just how innovative and ground-breaking a move it was to invite Bedford to accompany the tour.”

Writer and broadcaster John McCarthy, who has written the foreword to the exhibition publication, said, “The first thing that strikes me about Bedford’s photographs is how good they are. It is only 20 or 30 years after the invention of the medium, and yet the quality of the images is stunning. They manage to bring alive the places the royal party visited, capturing the majesty and romance of what were then largely unvisited sites. One hundred and fifty years on and the Middle East continues to hold our attention – for the wonderful sites, but also for the political landscape in which they are set.

Press release from The Queen’s Gallery

Joseph Albert (German, 1825-1886) (photographer)
[The Prince of Wales with Prince Louis of Hesse, and companions, in Munich, February 1862]
1862
Albumen print pasted onto card
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

A group of eight men, with the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) at the centre and Prince Louis of Hesse standing on the right. The Prince of Wales rests his hand against his face, while an open book is held in front of him.

This photograph was taken at the beginning of the Prince of Wales’s tour to the Middle East. He travelled out by train through Europe, meeting various dignitaries en route. Prince Louis of Hesse (who was to marry the prince’s sister, Princess Alice, in July 1862) met the royal party in Darmstadt on 8 February 1862. The Prince of Wales and Prince Louis were photographed with a number of the party who accompanied the Prince from Windsor. The Prince wrote about the occasion in his journal, ‘before luncheon we went through the ordeal of being photography by Mr. Albert and the result was very successful’.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
View through the Great Gateway into the Grand Court of the Temple of Edfou [Temple of Horus, Edfu]
14 Mar 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
23.5 x 29.2cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Edfu is the site of an important temple complex to the falcon-headed god Horus, constructed between 237 and 51 BC. The main gateway, properly known as the First Pylon, is covered in carvings showing the Pharaoh Ptolemy XII defeating his enemies in the presence of the god Horus and goddess Hathor, both of whom appear twice, on either side of the gateway.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Edfou’. The number in the Day & Son series is 23.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Great Propylon of the Temple at Edfou [Pylon of the Temple of Horus, Edfu]
14 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.4 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Edfou’. The number in the Day & Son series is 22.

Edfu was one of several temples built during the Ptolemaic period, including Dendera, Esna, Kom Ombo and Philae. Its size reflects the relative prosperity of the time. The present temple, which was begun “on 23 August 237 BC, initially consisted of a pillared hall, two transverse halls, and a barque sanctuary surrounded by chapels.” The building was started during the reign of Ptolemy III and completed in 57 BC under Ptolemy XII. It was built on the site of an earlier, smaller temple also dedicated to Horus, although the previous structure was oriented east-west rather than north-south as in the present site. A ruined pylon lies just to the east of the current temple; inscriptional evidence has been found indicating a building program under the New Kingdom rulers Ramesses I, Seti I and Ramesses II. A naos of Nectanebo II, a relic from an earlier building, is preserved in the inner sanctuary, which stands alone while the temple’s barque sanctuary is surrounded by nine chapels.

The temple of Edfu fell into disuse as a religious monument following Theodosius I’s edict banning non-Christian worship within the Roman Empire in 391. As elsewhere, many of the temple’s carved reliefs were razed by followers of the Christian faith which came to dominate Egypt. The blackened ceiling of the hypostyle hall, visible today, is believed to be the result of arson intended to destroy religious imagery that was then considered pagan.

Over the centuries, the temple became buried to a depth of 12 metres (39 ft) beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt deposited by the Nile. Local inhabitants built homes directly over the former temple grounds. Only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible by 1798, when the temple was identified by a French expedition. In 1860 Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, began the work of freeing Edfu temple from the sands.

The Temple of Edfu is nearly intact and a very good example of an ancient Egyptian temple. The Temple of Edfu’s archaeological significance and high state of preservation has made it a centre for tourism in Egypt and a frequent stop for the many riverboats that cruise the Nile. In 2005, access to the temple was revamped with the addition of a visitor centre and paved carpark. A sophisticated lighting system was added in late 2006 to allow night visits.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Tombs of the Memlooks at Cairo [Mausoleum and Khanqah of Emir Qawsun]
25 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
24.1 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Once the royal party returned to Cairo, Francis Bedford spent some time photographing the sites alone while the Prince undertook a separate programme of events. Bedford visited a number of fine examples of Islamic architecture. Emir Qawsun was one of the most powerful emirs during the 14th century. His tomb and khanqah (a large hall for gatherings for prayer and meditation) were built in 1335-1336.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Cairo’. The number in the Day & Son series is 9.

Anonymous photographer
View of the Tombs of the Memlook Kings, Cairo, Egypt
Nd
7.75 x 4.2 inches
From the collection of Dr Paula Sanders, Rice University

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Mosque of Mehemet Ali [Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo]
8 March 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
24.8 x 29.5cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

View of Mosque of Mohammed Ali in Cairo, Egypt. Alabaster building seen across square, with 2 tall minarets centre. Single row of columns supporting round arches lining court, left. The mosque was built in the Ottoman style between 1830 and 1848 for the son of the ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha (Mehmet Ali). The Prince of Wales and his party visited the mosque on 3 March 1862. They climbed to the roof to get a view of the town and country, and were able to see the pyramids in the distance. They also visited Mehmet Ali’s tomb within the mosque (he died in 1849).

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Cairo’. The number in the Day & Son series is 10.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Fountain in the Court of the Mosque of Mehemet Ali [Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo]
3 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
24.8 x 29.6cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Prince spent a few days in Cairo before travelling down the Nile. The royal party were taken to visit the Mosque of Muhammad Ali (r. 1805-1848), who was the founder of the dynasty ruling the country at that time. The Mosque, only completed in 1857, remains today one of the most prominent landmarks in the city.

The photographer, Francis Bedford, wrote in his catalogue of this scene, “This light and elegant edifice has long and justly been celebrated as one of the most beautiful fountains in the mosks of Cairo. As is apparent in the Photograph, it is fast hastening to decay; and it is altogether to be lamented that among the inhabitants of modern Egypt so little provision is made for the repair and preservation of interesting monuments of ancient art.” (Bedford photographic catalogue 1862, pp. 4-5).

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Cairo’. The number in the Day & Son series is 11.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Garden of Gethsemane [Jerusalem]
2 Apr 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
21.1 x 29.1cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Garden of Gethsemane has always been identified as an olive grove. Here the carefully tended, centuries-old olive trees are easily identified.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated (incorrectly as 2 March 1862) in the negative, ‘F Bedford Gethsemane’. The number in the Day & Son series is 68.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Mount of Olives and Garden of Gethsemane [Jerusalem]
2 Apr 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.4 x 28.5cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Mount of Olives rises to the east of Jerusalem. The walled enclosure to the right contains the site identified as the Garden of Gethsemane. After the Last Supper, Jesus went to the garden where he prayed, accompanied by St Peter, St John and St James the Greater. Jesus was subsequently betrayed by Judas in the garden and arrested.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated (incorrectly as 2 March 1862) in the negative, ‘F Bedford Jerusalem’. The number in the Day & Son series is 63.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
West Front of the Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem]
1 Apr 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
22.3 x 28.2cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Islamic shrine was constructed on a site traditionally identified with Solomon’s Temple, which was later replaced with the Second Temple only to be destroyed by the Romans. The Dome of the Rock was constructed between 688 and 691 AD. The ‘rock’ is believed to be the place from where the prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven in his Night Journey. Other traditions identify the rock as the place where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Jerusalem’. The number in the Day & Son series is 55.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Upper Bethoron [Beit Ur al-Foqa and the Valley of Ajalon]
31 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.1 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Royal Yacht reached Jaffa (modern-day Tel Aviv) on 29 March. The following day the royal party set out on horses in the direction of Jerusalem. En route they visited Beit Ur al-Foqa from where they could view the Valley of Ajalon, the site of a famous biblical battle, fought by Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, against the Amorite kings.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Bethoron’. The number in the Day & Son series is 50.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Damascus – from a minaret in the Christian quarter [Syria]
30 Apr 1862
Albumen print
23.5 x 28.8cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

View across rooftops of dilapidated buildings in Damascus. Minarets and dome of Great Mosque visible in distance, left. The ruins were a consequence of the conflict during the 1860 massacres.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Damascus’. The number in the Day & Son series is 95.

Francis Bedford (1815-1894) (photographer)
The Street called Straight, Damascus
30 Apr 1862
Albumen print
23.8 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

View up Straight Street – narrow lane running between Christian and Jews’ Quarter in Damascus. Buildings either side stand in ruins.

The ‘Street called Straight’ led out of the Christian quarter. Signs of the 1860 conflict are still apparent in the photograph. The street, however, was known as the place where St Paul (formerly Saul) regained his sight and converted to Christianity, having been blinded by holy light three days earlier while travelling on the road to Damascus. The Christian quarter is to the north-east of the street. This reflects a decision made in 636 by Khalid Ibn al-Walid, the Muslim conqueror of Damascus, to retain the orthodox churches in this area and to continue to provide access for the Christians to these buildings.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Damascus’. The number in the Day & Son series is 97.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Tower of Galata and part of Turkish burial ground [Istanbul, Turkey]
21 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
23.6 x 28.8cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

View of the Galata Tower, in the Galata district of Constantinople [Istanbul]. The tower was built by the Genoese community in 1348 and was known as the ‘Christea Turris’ [Tower of Christ]. Various restoration works have taken place over the years, and the tower now has a conical turret at the top, rather than the two-storey pavilion seen in the photograph. The Prince of Wales makes no mention in his journal of visiting or climbing the tower. It was not far from the arsenal and the Nusretiye Mosque, which he visited on 21 May 1862.

The photograph is signed and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Constantinople’. See RCIN 2861678 for another print of this image.

The Romanesque style tower was built as Christea Turris (Tower of Christ) in 1348 during an expansion of the Genoese colony in Constantinople. Galata Tower was the tallest building in Istanbul at 219 1/2 feet (66.9 m) when it was built in 1348. It was built to replace the old Tower of Galata, an original Byzantine tower named Megalos Pyrgos (English: Great Tower) which controlled the northern end of the massive sea chain that closed the entrance to the Golden Horn. That tower was on a different site and was largely destroyed in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade of 1202-1204.

The upper section of the tower with the conical cap was slightly modified in several restorations during the Ottoman period when it was used as an observation tower for spotting fires. According to the Seyahatname of Ottoman historian and traveller Evliya Çelebi, in circa 1630-1632, Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi flew as an early intercontinental aviator using artificial wings for gliding from this tower over the Bosphorus to the slopes of Üsküdar on the Anatolian side, nearly six kilometres away. Evliyâ Çelebi also tells of Hezarfen’s brother, Lagari Hasan Çelebi, performing the first flight with a rocket in a conical cage filled with gunpowder in 1633.

Starting from 1717 the Ottomans began to use the tower for spotting fires in the city. In 1794, during the reign of Sultan Selim III, the roof of the tower made of lead and wood, and the stairs were severely damaged by a fire. Another fire damaged the building in 1831, upon which a new restoration work took place.

In 1875, during a storm, the conical roof on the top of the building was destroyed. The tower remained without this conical roof for the rest of the Ottoman period. Many years later, during the restoration works between 1965 and 1967, the conical roof was reconstructed. During this final restoration in the 1960s, the wooden interior of the tower was replaced by a concrete structure and it was commercialised and opened to the public.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Rhodes, supposed site of the Colossus
15 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
22.6 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was said to have straddled the entrance to the harbour into Rhodes Town. The Colossus was a statue of the Titan Helios, standing at about 30 m (107 ft) high. It was constructed to commemorate an unsuccessful siege of the island in 305 BC.

The photograph is signed and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Rhodes’.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Entrance to the Grotto of Antiparos
16 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
22.5 x 28.6cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

The Grotto, or ‘Great Cave’, on the small island of Antiparos, has been a tourist attraction for hundreds of years. The Prince of Wales described his visit, “A ride of 45 minutes brought us to the entrance of a large grotto or cave which is 60 fathoms in depth. We descended it by means of rope and rope ladders, and it was by no means an easy job. … There are some very fine stalactites in the cave.”

The photograph is signed and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Antiparos’. See RCIN 2861673 for another print of this image.

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Photographic title page: ‘Photographic Pictures made by Mr Francis Bedford during the Tour in the East’
1862
Albumen print on original mount
25.8 x 21.3 cm
Acquired by HM The Queen, 2006
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

Photographic title page from Francis Bedford’s Middle East views of 1862. Includes a copy of Bedford’s view of the ‘Mosque of Omar from the Governor’s House’ in Jerusalem

Joseph Albert (English, 1825-1886) (photographer)
[The Prince of Wales and Prince Louis of Hesse, 11 February 1862]
Feb 1862
Albumen print pasted on card
Commissioned and acquired by the Prince of Wales while travelling through Europe, 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

A carte-de-visite portrait of the Prince of Wales (right) with Prince Louis of Hesse (Grand Duke Ludwig IV). Prince Louis was engaged to marry the Prince’s sister, Princess Alice.

This photograph was taken when the Prince was travelling across Europe in order to meet the royal yacht at Venice, in order to commence his tour of the Middle East. Both princes wear overcoats and hats, and are smoking cigarettes; the Prince of Wales is holding a cane. The Prince later wrote about this occasion in his journal, “Before luncheon we went through the ordeal of being photographed by Mr Albert and the result was very successful” (11 February 1862).

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