Photographs of the Middle East and North Africa comprises over 4,500 photographic images of the Middle East and North Africa. The majority of the images were created between 1850 and 1920 and record a period when the "Orient," increasingly open and accessible to the West, exerted a compelling allure on western viewers, travelers, scholars and entrepreneurs alike. Works by 164 different photographers and studios present an overwhelmingly western vision of and response to Egypt, the Maghreb and the Levant.

Ken and Jenny Jacobson are photographic art dealers and collectors based in England. Ken Jacobson was born in the United States and holds a BA in chemistry from Princeton University and a PhD in biophysics from King's College, London, where he met Jenny, who was working there in biochemistry research. While pursuing his doctorate, Ken Jacobson began collecting nineteenth-century photography. This avocation became a vocation, as what was to have been a gap year devoted to selling photographs before starting a career in scientific research never ended.

147.7 Linear Feet (103 boxes, 3 flatfile folders)

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