10 Days, 10 New Acquisitions: Day Nine

Photographs of the Holy Land: Sinai and Palestine; Lower Egypt, Thebes, and the Pyramids; Upper Egypt and Ethiopia by Francis Frith, 1863.

In 1856-57, when the science and art of photography were still young and developing (pun intended), the Englishman Francis Frith traveled to the Middle East to photograph the great sites of antiquity. A work of monumental proportions and importance to the early history of documentary photography, Francis Frith’s Photographs of the Holy Land includes some of the earliest published photographic images of Jerusalem, as well as iconic views of Egypt’s monuments and ruins, some now lost or much more decayed. The 111 albumen photographs are mounted in three folio volumes, and the set acquired by Duke this year is notable for the fine condition of the photographs.

From the Archive of Documentary Arts.

For more photos of our new acquisitions (and other materials from the RBMSCL’s collections), check out the “From the RBMSCL’s Collections” set on the Duke University Libraries’ Flickr photostream.

Post contributed by Will Hansen, Assistant Curator of Collections.

Previous posts:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight