Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Views of Greece, Egypt and Constantinople
2001.R.1
No online items
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Views of Greece, Egypt and Constantinople
Creator:
Robertson, James, 1813-1888
Identifier/Call Number: 2001.R.1
Identifier/Call Number: /repositories/3/resources/220
Physical Description:
5.3 Linear Feet
(3 boxes)
Date (inclusive): circa 1853-1857
Abstract: The collection comprises sixty-nine photographs of Greece, Egypt and
Constantinople attributed to the British photographer James Robertson. The majority of these photographs record the ancient
monuments of the city of
Athens. The remainder document a small number of ancient Greek sites outside Athens, as well as various architectural monuments
in Constantinople.
Photographs of one ancient and one Islamic monument in Egypt are also included.
Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory
through the
catalog record for this
collection. Click here for the
access
policy
.
Language of Material:
English .
Scope and Content of the Collection
Sixty-nine photographs of Greece, Constantinople and Egypt attributed to the British photographer James Robertson comprise
the collection. The majority
of these photographs record the ancient monuments of the city of Athens. The remainder document the antiquities of Corinth,
Sounion and Aegina, as well
as various architectural monuments in Constantinople. A photograph of the Sphinx and an Islamic monument in Cairo are also
included. These Robertson
photographs form an important study collection for the early history of photography. Additionally, the photographs of Greece
provide rare visual
documentation of the state of the archaeological monuments, as well as the practice of archaeology, in the 1850s.
The majority of the photographs in the collection are identified as Robertson's work either through a signature on the negative
or the print, or by
attribution. Two photographs bear the joint signature of Robertson and his partner, Felice Beato. One photograph may be intrusive,
with no clear
connection to Robertson.
James Robertson's photography centered on his adopted city of Constantinople, but he also photographed Greece, Malta, the
Holy Land and Egypt, as well
as the conflict of the Crimean War. Apart from his Crimean War photography, Robertson's images fall into three main categories:
panoramic cityscapes,
architectural studies and Ottoman types. Only the architectural work is represented in this collection. Robertson had a distinctive
style of
photographing architectural monuments with groupings of two or three figures in the foreground. Seemingly casual passersby,
wearing uniforms, native and
western dress, surround the monuments providing scale and lending a touch of romantic, local color for Robertson's northern
European clientele.
Robertson's photographs of the eastern Mediterranean world mark the shift from amateur to professional travel photography
in the 1850s. Robertson never
solely made a living from his photographs, but he was certainly aware of the commercial market and chose and composed his
images accordingly.
Robertson's images were designed to appeal to a northern European, primarily British, traveler, either civilian or military,
and the public back home.
He marketed to the growing interest in the East and Orientalism in mid-century Britain, which was dramatically increased by
the Crimean War. His
photographs were exotic, yet comfortable for the British public because they followed an established aesthetic of presenting
the eastern Mediterranean
world. In order to reach his target audience, the actual traveler or the armchair tourist, Robertson advertised his work in
British publications and
displayed his work in exhibitions in London and other European cities.
This collection of Robertson photographs is unusual in that it is composed primarily of his less common photographs of Greece,
and in that it
represents such a comprehensive set of these photographs. The dates for the photographs used here represent the date the negative
was made. Individual
prints may have been made at a later point, but for the majority of the prints in this collection, there is no evidence for
a substantially later print
date.
This collection also displays the range of Robertson's technical practices. The appearance of Robertson's photographs suggest
that he used a
wet-collodion process for his negatives. As for his prints, Robertson appears to have made use of several processes. This
collection includes images
printed on plain salted paper and on albumen coated paper. However, the 1850s were a transitional time for printmaking techniques
and the technique of
the majority of prints in this collection, especially the photographs of Greece, remains ambiguous through visual analysis
alone. These ambiguous prints
are distinguished by a surface sheen intermediate between the surface type associated with salted paper prints and that of
standard albumen prints. This
surface sheen could be due to either a heavily diluted albumen image-carrying layer or to a material, such as albumen, used
as a post-processing coating
over a plain salted paper print.
Organized in two series: Series I. Photographs of Greece, circa 1853-1854; Series II. Photographs of Constantinople and Egypt,
circa 1853-1857.
Although James Robertson's photographs have enjoyed broad popularity both in his time and today, until recently many details
of his life and career
have remained obscure. New research has significantly altered the facts presented in much of the earlier scholarship and helped
to clarify the
professional relationship between Robertson and Felice Beato, his collaborator.
Of Scottish descent, James Robertson was born in Middlesex outside London in 1813. He trained as an engraver, and by 1833
he was working at the British
Royal Mint. In 1841, Robertson moved to Constantinople, present-day Istanbul, having been recruited as part of a group brought
in to modernize the
Ottoman Imperial Mint. As chief engraver and die-maker, Robertson was known for his elaborate and beautiful designs for Ottoman
coinage and
commemorative medals. In April 1855, he married Matilda Beato, cementing a relationship with her brothers, Felice and Antonio,
who would follow
Robertson into photography. Robertson worked at the Mint with ever increasing responsibilities, including appointment to the
Imperial Coinage
Commission, until his retirement in October 1881. He and his family then immediately left Constantinople for Yokohama, Japan,
where Felice Beato had
settled. Robertson died there on 18 April 1888.
By the early 1850s, Robertson was engaged in photography as a sideline to his work at the Mint. His short, intense photographic
career can be roughly
divided into three phases. In the years from circa 1853 to 1855, Robertson worked alone, photographing Constantinople and
then Greece. From 1856 to
1857, he worked with his brother-in-law Felice Beato, first with Beato as an uncredited assistant, then as a full partner,
and the pair photographed
farther afield. After 1858, Robertson only sold prints from earlier negatives.
It is not completely clear when or how Robertson got interested in photography. He may have been drawn into the new medium
through his general artistic
interests. As well as his numismatic designs, Robertson produced sketches and paintings of life in Constantinople in his early
years in the city.
Whenever he began, by July of 1853 there is evidence of him selling individual photographs of Constantinople, and by October
he had an album for sale.
These early forays into photography were successful. By the fall of 1853, Robertson's photographs were being used for engravings
in western publications
like the
Illustrated London News and his Constantinople album was favorably reviewed. He quickly expanded his catalog, photographing in
Greece in 1853 or 1854 and publishing two albums of those photographs in 1854. Robertson continued to send his work out to
the western market. In
January 1855 he exhibited a selection of Constantinople photographs in London, and in May a group of photographs of Constantinople
and Greece in Paris.
Both venues led to critical acclaim. Also around this time, Robertson opened a studio in Pera, the European quarter of Constantinople,
probably
primarily as a sales outlet for his prints.
The turning point in Robertson's photographic career, however, was his coverage of the Crimean War. Robertson's location in
Constantinople gave him
easy access to the war zone. His earliest photographs of the war document the staging of troops outside the city in the summer
of 1854, and he
subsequently made several trips to the front in 1855 and 1856, documenting the aftermath of decisive battles. Robertson's
war coverage brought him an
extensive new audience for his work.
It was also at this time that Robertson started working with Felice Beato. By May of 1856 Beato was in the Crimea working
as Robertson's assistant.
Although the photographs of the Crimea were signed only by Robertson, contemporary documentation indicates that many photographs
from the summer of 1856
were actually taken by Beato. Robertson and Beato's collaboration continued after the war. By late summer they were on Malta
photographing the island
and selling those prints, as well as Robertson's earlier work. They returned to Constantinople that December, soon to set
out on their next photographic
expedition to document the Holy Land and Egypt. When they arrived in Jerusalem in March of 1857, they were accompanied by
Antonio, Felice's younger
brother. Antonio Beato would later become an established photographer in his own right, but there is no evidence for his actual
involvement in these
photographs. It is also with this trip that the signature on the photographs shifts from "Robertson" to "Robertson & Beato."
New photographs of
Constantinople and Athens with this double signature further document the work of the pair in 1857.
After this burst of activity, however, Robertson and Beato went their separate ways. In 1858, Robertson appears to have quit
taking photographs,
although he still produced prints of his earlier work until he finally sold the studio in Pera in 1867. The company name of
"Robertson & Beato"
would continue on new photography for a short while longer, used by Felice Beato, but with no evidence of Robertson's active
involvement.
Unlike Robertson, Felice Beato pursued photography as his primary career. He was probably born in the 1820s, possibly on Corfu.
After the work with
Robertson in 1856-1857, Beato went off on his own. His training with Robertson, especially the experience of the Crimean War
and the military
connections he made there, set the stage for Beato's subsequent career, as one of the first photographers to serve primarily
as a war photographer. From
1858 to 1860 Beato photographed the Indian Mutiny. Many of these photographs, although solely the work of Beato, bear the
signature "Robertson &
Beato," presumably to take advantage of the company's name recognition. After this initial solo enterprise, further series
of military conflicts
followed. Beato went to China with the Anglo-French expeditionary force and documented the Second Opium War in 1860. In 1871
he was the photographer for
an American naval expedition against Korea. Finally, in 1885 he went on the Sudan expedition to Khartoum to rescue Gordon,
although none of these
photographs survive.
Between these military engagements, Beato was based in Yokohama, where he had settled in 1863. The following year he formed
a partnership with Charles
Wirgman, a correspondent and artist for the
Illustrated London News who had travelled with Beato in China, supplying photographs for
publications and tourist views. The partnership lasted until 1868, when Beato went off on his own. His non-military photographic
work in this period
included architecture, landscapes and genre scenes, many still bearing traces of Robertson's stylistic influence. By 1877,
however, Beato sold his
photographic business. He appears to have then been a general merchant until November 1884, when he went bankrupt due to currency
speculation. By 1889
Beato had moved to Burma where he would run a photographic studio and furniture business until his death circa 1907.
Comparable collections of James Robertson's photographs of Greece are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London and the Benaki Museum in Athens.
Ann Harrison processed and described the Views of Greece, Egypt and Constantinople in 2001 and 2007. John McElhone, photograph
conservator at the
National Gallery of Canada, and Teresa Mesquit, photograph conservator at the Getty Research Institute, provided expertise
on the techniques of
mid-nineteenth-century photographic prints.
Acquired in 2001.
James Robertson, Views of Greece, Egypt and Constantinople, circa 1853-1857. Research Library, The Getty Research Institute,
Accession no. 2001.R.1
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2001r1
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Reproductions and
Permissions
.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Corinth (Greece) -- Antiquities
Cairo (Egypt) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Istanbul (Turkey) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Istanbul (Turkey) -- Antiquities
Albumen prints -- Turkey -- 19th century
Albumen prints -- Egypt -- 19th century
Salted paper prints -- Turkey -- 19th century
Salted paper prints -- Greece -- 19th century
Excavations (Archaeology) -- Greece -- Athens
Erechtheum (Athens, Greece)
Great Sphinx (Egypt)
Fountains -- Turkey -- Istanbul
Library of Hadrian (Athens, Greece)
Hephaisteion (Athens, Greece)
Athens (Greece) -- Buildings, structures, etc.
Athens (Greece) -- Antiquities
Architecture, Ottoman -- Turkey -- Istanbul
Architecture, Roman -- Greece -- Athens
Architecture, Islamic -- Turkey -- Istanbul
Architecture, Mameluke -- Egypt -- Cairo
Archaeology -- Greece -- 19th century
Architecture, Greek -- Greece -- Athens
Mosques -- Egypt -- Cairo
Arch of Hadrian (Athens, Greece)
Obelisks -- Turkey -- Istanbul
Mosques -- Turkey -- Istanbul
Parthenon (Athens, Greece)
Olympieion (Athens, Greece)
Süleymaniye Camii (Istanbul, Turkey)
Propylaea (Athens, Greece)
Tower of the Winds (Athens, Greece)
Temple of Athena Nike (Athens, Greece)
Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
Aegina Island (Greece) -- Antiquities
Ákra Soúnion (Greece) -- Antiquities
Pittakys, K. S. (Kyriakos S.), 1806?-1863
Beato, Felice, 1832-1909