General View of Monuments Carved into Bedrock with Photographer's Dahabieh. Abu Simbel

1852

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Impressionism Realism Early 19th Century Cityscape

Dominant colour

General View of Monuments Carved into Bedrock with Photographer's Dahabieh. Abu Simbel is a 1852 by Félix Teynard, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Félix Teynard
When & what style?: 1852 · Impressionism
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

This photo shows an old Egyptian temple carved into rock. A small boat floats in the river out front. The photographer stands on its deck. Teynard wasn’t a professional photographer. He was an engineer who took photos to study ancient sites. He traveled in a dahabieh, a slow boat built for the Nile. Look up Félix Teynard (French, 1817–1892) to see more of his Egypt photos.

The story of this work

Overview

Teynard, a civil engineer, may have learned photography for his 1851–52 tour of Egypt, which he undertook “to study certain questions of personal interest.” In 1858 he published his photographic record of ancient sites, the most comprehensive to date, as a book of salted paper prints. Teynard traveled by dahabieh , a small passenger boat visible in this image. He asked his readers to grant some indulgence for photographers carrying out such painstaking work in an arduous locale like Egypt. “A nomad, his working method is always provisional, and the delicate preparations for his photography…

Read the full account in the museum source.