Imagine Egypt. A Story of Travel, Experiences, Archeology and Art Through 19th Century Orientalist Photography

Abstract

During the second half of the 19th century, Egypt was the Middle Eastern destination most appreciated by European photographers. Its interest was determined by its ancient history ‒reflected in the monuments and ruins of Pharaonic Egypt and Islamic Egypt‒ and its outstanding geographical location, a bridge between East and West. These aspects were the germ for the configuration of an orientalist story of images in which adventure, experiences and erudition were mixed. The appearance of tourism, with the first tours organized by Thomas Cook in Egypt and Palestine starting in 1868, only increased this interest and generated a demand for photographs, as tourists acquired them as souvenirs of the trip in the photographic studios of Cairo or Alexandria. This article imagines Egypt through images made by European traveling photographers and local studios. Some images related to the concept of the trip to the East or oriental grand tour, in which attention is paid to the often stereotyped character of the images that gave rise to a particular vision of the other ‒the Arab‒, but in which one can also appreciate the representation of a territory, a landscape, people and ways of life that made up a particular mapping of 19th century Egypt.