ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author provides an inspiring example of how historiography, concisely written and sharply focussed, can illuminate photography’s past. Since the seventeenth century the British had traveled the Continent, gradually institutionalizing the Grand Tour; the objective was for the gentleman to get to sunny Italy and to stay as long as possible soaking up classical culture before returning home via Switzerland and, usually, France. Perhaps the most prolific early touring photographer was George Bridges, who took instruction from Henry Talbot before embarking on a six-year voyage during which he made some seventeen hundred negatives. The conquest of Egypt and the Near East through knowledge was the formative rationale for many photographs. Louis de Clercq began his photographic tour of the Mediterranean to help illustrate an archaeologist friend’s study of the Crusader castles, and Maxime Du Camp’s expedition to Egypt and the Near East in 1849-51 enjoyed direct government patronage.
