1848
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Egypt and Nubia, Volume II: Entrance to the Tombs of the Kings of Thebes, Bab-El-Malouk is a 1848 by Louis Haghe, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This painting shows a dark tomb entrance carved into rocky cliffs. Dusty light cuts through the shadows near the opening. Two small figures stand in the gap—one holds a lantern, the other points inside. Haghe made this using color lithography, a printing trick that lets artists mix bright colors. Before cameras, people relied on prints like this to see faraway places. The details feel almost 3D, like you could step into the scene. Want a closer look? Find it at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
By the mid-19th century, the complexities of printing in numerous colors had been mastered, culminating in one of the high points of European printmaking. The plates drawn by Haghe, which copy the watercolors that David Roberts made in Egypt, are exquisite examples of color lithography. Egypt was a distant, mysterious country for Europeans and Haghe, a Scottish topographical and architectural artist who spent the year of 1838 traveling across this ancient land. The resulting prints—the first comprehensive series of views of the monuments, landscapes, and people of the Near East—were…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Louis Haghe (17 March 1806 – 9 March 1885) was a lithographer and watercolourist from the Netherlands and then the United Kingdom.
See the richer artist page
