the first mammoth-plate view of Jerusalem

This spectacular early photograph of the Old City of Jerusalem and its surrounding hills is the first mammoth-plate view of Jerusalem. In this image taken from the Mount of Olives, Frith shows the walls of the ancient city with houses and buildings visible within. The Dome of the Rock can be seen at the left, and the Kidron Valley runs across the middle of the photograph.

This view dates to the dawn of mammoth-plate photography, a rare, costly and cumbersome process which produced unparalleled results. Frith prepared a 15 x 18 inch glass plate with light-sensitive chemicals and exposed it to light, thereby creating a negative from which exquisitely detailed photographic prints could be made directly, without enlargement.

Returning to London from his expedition to Egypt and the Holy Land, Frith issued a series of twenty mammoth-plate views, “the biggest, unenlarged prints ever published” up to their time (Gernsheim). The series contained almost exclusively views in Egypt; this spectacular view is the only Frith mammoth plate depicting Jerusalem.

The works of “Francis Frith inaugurated the first golden age of albumen-silver photographic illustration” (The Truthful Lens). “The clarity of his images proved to be of immense value to archaeologists. The photographs are also often powerfully composed, revealing an understanding of the poetic qualities of light that gives them lasting aesthetic value” (McKenzie, Grove Art).

Frith’s mammoth plates represent the pinnacle of his art, and this view of Jerusalem is his greatest achievement there.

$12,000