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| Francis Frith Karnak - Hypostyle 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
Th small fame of Francis Frith (1822-1898) has come down to posterity not so much as an early artist of the camera but more as an entrepreneur. The Francis Frith Company at Reigate in Surrey supplied souvenir photographic views like these – along with photographic book illustrations, postcards, and catalogs – from 1859 through 1970. Once established, Frith became the marketing-man, rather than the artist. He seldom credited or even named those who actually took the pictures. The Egyptian group shown here belongs to a much larger set purchased from Frith by agents of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) in order to document his tours and travels. Titles of these plates are those assigned by Frith, even though many of the monuments now bear completely different names in line with later and more accurate research.
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| Francis Frith Colossi of Memnon 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Memnonium 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Frith-Francis Memnonium - Standing Colossi 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Philae - Columns 1857-59 albumen Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Philae - Island Temple of Isis 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Philae - Trajan's Kiosk for the Barge of Isis 1857-59 albumen Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Aswan - Roman Pier on the Nile 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Luxor - Obelisk and Pylon 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Hagar-Silsilis - Grottoes 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Esneh - Temple Columns, partially unburied 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
The three photographs below all represent the same ancient commemoration for Ramses the Great at Abu-Simel, featuring four seated colossi. Curators at the Royal Collection confide that an earthquake struck the monument shortly after its construction, toppling one of the seated statues. They claim that the ancient Egyptians simply left the fragments on the ground, as they had no means to lift the gigantic fragments back into place.
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| Francis Frith Abu-Simel - multiple Colossi of Ramses the Great 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Abu-Simel - multiple Colossi of Ramses the Great 1857-59 albumen print Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Francis Frith Abu-Simel - Colussus of Ramses the Great 1857-59 albumen silver Royal Collection, Great Britain |