Ibsamboul, Partie Septentrionale Du Spéos D'Hathor; Nubie, plate 108 from the album "Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie" (1852)
1849/51, printed 1852
Medium
Salted paper print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 16.1 × 21.8 cm (6 3/8 × 8 5/8 in.); Album page: 30 × 42.9 cm (11 13/16 × 16 15/16 in.)
Classification
salted paper print
Department
Photography and Media
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
144322
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
Step into the sun-baked sands of ancient Nubia with Maxime Du's *Ibsamboul, Partie Septentrionale Du Spéos D'Hathor*, plate 108 from his groundbreaking album *Egypte,ie, Palestine et Syrie (1852). Captured during Du Camp's 1849–51 expedition alongside writer Gustave Flaubert, this salted paper print (16.1 × 21.8 cm) preserves a moment from one of the earliest photographic journeys to Egypt's monumental sites. As a pioneering French photographer, Du Camp documented over 500 images, revolutionizing how the world viewed antiquity through the lens of the calotype process. The image focuses on the northern section of the Speos d'Hathor at Abu Simbel (ancient Ibsamboul), a magnificent rock-cut temple carved in the 13th century BCE under Ramses II. Dedicated to the goddess Hathor, its facade boasts colossal statues and intricate reliefs celebrating pharaonic power and divine worship. Du Camp's salted paper technique—sensitizing paper with salt and silver nitrate—yields soft, luminous tones that highlight the temple's weathered textures and hieroglyphs with remarkable fidelity for 1852 printing. This photograph holds immense historical value as an early archaeological record, bridging 19th-century exploration with Egypt's enduring legacy. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Photography and Media department, it invites visitors to marvel at how photography immortalized wonders now protected from Nile floods, offering a timeless window into Nubian grandeur.
About the Artist
Maxime Du Camp · 1822–present
Maxime Du Camp (1822–1894) was a pioneering French photographer and writer whose adventurous spirit and technical innovation bridged literature and visual art during the mid-19th century. Born in Paris on February 8, 1822, to a prosperous family—his father a successful surgeon—Du Camp received a solid bourgeois education at the Collège Bourbon (now Lycée Condorcet), where he cultivated interests i...