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the Suez Canal, and the Zangaki Brothers who had a
horse drawn mobile darkroom that actually appeared
in a number of their images. Arnoux photographed the
building site of the Suez Canal, and was known for his
various studio portraits. Images such as his albumen
prints “Odalisque, Egypt” c. 1880, and “Portrait of a
Women,” c. 1880, both using the same model against
an alluring painted backdrop, are archetypal images of
the exotic, seductive woman, that some studios fostered
through the staging of such images.
The British Francis Frith was probably the fi rst
“entrepreneur” photographer to establish himself as
the producer and promoter of large scale scenic and
architectural photographs of the distant Eastern lands.
Frith traveled to the Middle East three times between
1857 and 1860 and became the owner of the successful
photographic-view company, F. Frith and Co., the largest
such company in England. Frith’s exquisitely detailed
photographs record a world, often far off the beaten tour-
ist track—that was in subsequent years to become vastly
changed by the effects of archaeology, tourism and the
politics of confl icting nations. One sees, for example,
“Frith’s Boat on the Nile,” as its triangular sails pierce
the quiet Nile and its silent sculptural, rocky shores; or
“Cairo: The Mosque of the Caliph El-Hakim” where
Frith shows the viewer the ancient mosque (990–1003),
in ruins by the 1450s. Frith’s framing of the majestic
tower in a central arch form brings majesty and dignity
to the monumental structure. In the foreground Frith
has kept several people to show scale and local color.
During much of his travelling, Frith dressed in “native
dress”; a well-known self-portrait shows him in Turkish
costume. Back home in England, the Victorians were
enamored with foreign “costumes” that were pictur-
esque and belonged to the middle and upper classes of
any given country. Frith’s book production in 8¾ × 6½
inch formats, contained beautiful albumen prints. From
1858–1862 his titles included, Egypt and Palestine
Photographed and Described by Francis Frith; Cairo,
Sinai, Jerusalem, and the Pyramids of Egypt: A Series
of Sixty Photographic Views by Francis Frith; Egypt,
Nubia, and Ethiopia: Illustrated by One Hundred Ste-
reoscopic Photographs; and Egypt, Sinai and Palestine,
Supplementary Volume (4 volume series).
While Frith’s photographs were usually based on
actuality, the Oriental photographs of Roger Fenton,
comprising a suite of approximately 50 works, were
studio based, from his London Albert Terrace studio.
Fenton had traveled to the Crimea in 1855 on commis-
sion from the publisher, Thomas Agnew, and support
from Queen Victoria to photograph the Crimean War
effort. In so doing, Fenton provided one of the fi rst
extensive photo documentations of any war, and so
collected many objects and fabrics that he was to use
in his Oriental studio studies in the late 1850’s. These
images were not authentic, but were widely accepted
by a public that sought the exotic and sensual, that was
“safe” to view through the distance provided by the
photographic image. In his 1858 “Pasha and Bayadère”
one fi nds the elaborate details of patterned draperies,
rugs, tables, and vases, and dress in a well articulated
triangular composition of the three main characters on
Fenton’s stage set. Upon careful viewing, one can see
there are actually strings holding the young woman’sORIENTALISM
Fenton, Roger. Reclining
Odalisque.
The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Rubel Collection,
Purchase, Lila Acheson
Wallace, Anonymous, Joyce
and Robert Menschel,
Jennifer and Joseph Duke,
and Ann Tenenbaum and
Thomas H. Lee Gifts, 1997
(1997.382.34) Image.