561
mammoth plate, and stereo. Frith’s correspondence, as
well as journal entries and reports by Wenham published
later, provide detailed information on the logistics of
travel photography.
Frith returned from this fi rst trip in July 1857 and
departed again that fall for Egypt with the intention of
extending his photographic coverage into the Holy Land.
While Frith was on this second tour, the publisher James
Virtue announced Egypt and Palestine Photographed
and Described by Frances Frith (1858-1860), available
by subscription. The fi rst numbers were released prior
to Frith’s return and received great acclaim. This was
not the fi rst publication of his photographs of Egypt.
Negretti and Zambra had released an extensive set of
stereo images, Egypt and Nubia: Descriptive Catalogue
of One Hundred Stereoscopic Views of the Pyramids, the
Nile, Karnak, Thebes, Aboo-Simbel, and All the Most
Interesting Objects of Egypt and Nubia (1857) which
met with wide success. Upon his return he exhibited
photographs from the second journey, including an im-
pressively large (8½ feet in length) panorama of Cairo.
Inspired by the commercial success of stereo views and
the subscription Egypt and Palestine, and perhaps to
insure the quality of photographic printing, Frith formed
a photographic printing fi rm, Frith and Hayward, with a
London printerseller. He returned to Egypt and the Holy
Lands for a third and fi nal time in 1859, at which time he
rephotographed Jerusalem and other biblical sites, and
retraced and photographed the putative path of Moses
and the Israelites across the Sinai Peninsula.
Frith’s career as a publisher of photographic images
began in earnest in 1860. Frith and Hayward’s printing
operation expanded and moved to Reigate. In 1862
Frith acquired sole ownership and continued printing
as F. Frith and Company. Nickel estimates that to meet
the demand for Frith’s Near Eastern views, the Reigate
operation printed more than 152,000 plates from Frith’s
negatives (Nickel 2004, 78). A second publication
with Virtue followed; Cairo, Sinai, Jerusalem, and
the Pyramids of Egypt (1860–1861), also offered by
subscription, and based on photographs from Frith’s
third expedition. At the same time, twenty mammoth
plate photographs were offered in a folio edition by
Wm. Mackenzie, Egypt, Sinai, and Jerusalem (1860).
In 1862 he brought out two editions of a photographi-
cally illustrated Bible—a version with twenty standard
format photographs, and a lavish version with mammoth
plates, dedicated to Victoria and titled The Queen’s
Bible. The defi nitive publication of photographs from
all three expeditions, Egypt, Palestine, and Nubia (1862)
was released in four volumes organized by region. Frith
offered his Near Eastern views in a variety of formats
for distinct audiences—stereo views and lantern slide
programs appealed to both the popular taste for spec-
tacle and the Victorian interest in self-improvement.
Lavishly produced volumes of image and text, offered
by subscription, were intended for a cultured, well-
educated audience. “In both stereo and projected forms,
Frith’s imagery was, at the outset, directed at a mass
market...it was conceived and offered as spectacle...”
(Nickel 2004, 71).
Frith’s next project offered photographs from less ex-
otic locations: The Gossiping Photographer at Hastings
(1864) and The Gossiping Photographer on the Rhine
(1864). The Gossiping Photographer books coincided
with the change in travel patterns of the middle class.FRITH, FRANCIS
Frith, Francis. The Ramesseum of El-
Kurneh, Thebes-First View.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Gilman Collection, Purchase,
Anonymous Gift, by exchange,
2005 (2005.100.633) Image © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.