63 photo plates of the Land of Israel, Sinai and Egypt by Francis Frith. The photographs are in the original folder published by Frith, carrying the title Photographic Art .
Some of the photographs are captioned in print. Some are captioned and dated in pencil.
Francis Frith (1822-1898), was the first professional photographer in the Near East and the most important. In 1856 he sailed to Alexandria, and for almost two years he took photographic journeys in Egypt and the Sinai Desert. In September 1856, he sailed from Liverpool to Alexandria and in November 1857 he left for the Land of Israel. He crossed the Sinai desert with a convoy of donkeys and camels who carried his equipment. He arrived in Gaza and from there he traveled via Hebron to Jerusalem. [When he first sighted Jerusalem he described, “Jerusalem is emptied, terribly desolate … sanctified and beautiful, but nothing is left of its greatness and it is now full of filth.] After a short stay on the Mount of Olives, Frith continued on to Jericho, and from there to Tiberias. (According to his testimony, on his way to Tiberias, he was almost bitten by a leopard). From the Land of Israel, Frith continued on to Lebanon, and then returned to Jaffa, and sailed to Alexandria. In May of 1858, he returned to England with dozens of photographs of the Near East in his bag, photographed for the first time in history. His photographs quickly became extremely sought-after by the people of the time and his factory was the largest of its kind in the world. At its peak, he held a stock of thousands of photographs and his postcards were sold in over 2000 stores across England.
Due to the conditions of the photographic industry in those first years, taking a photograph was cumbersome. Frith brought three cameras with him on his trips – a studio camera, a 24×20 camera, and a stereoscopic camera. Each picture was photographed by all three cameras. Upon arrival at the site to be photographed, the convoy stopped, the equipment was unpacked and a special tent pitched to serve as something of a photography room. Frith’s technical abilities granted his work a dimension unmatched by other photographers of his generation. Frith’s work holds a place of honor in the history of photographs of the Land of Israel, primarily due to its being first and the high technical quality of his photographs.
The photographs themselves are in fine condition. In some of the plates there are stains in the white margins. The case is in moderate condition. The spine is detached and torn, and there are also tears in the margins of the back binding.