Francis Frith - Sculptured gateway, and c.

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Francis Frith - Sculptured gateway, and c.

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Summary

The albumen silver print is a photographic printing process that was widely used in the 19th century. It involves coating paper support with a mixture of egg whites and salt, which creates a glossy surface to hold light-sensitive silver salts. The paper is then sensitized in a solution of silver nitrate, and exposed in a camera or under a negative. After exposure, the print is developed in a solution of gallic acid and silver nitrate, which reduces the silver salts to metallic silver and creates the final image. The albumen print process was widely used for commercial and fine art photography in the 19th century and produced high-quality, detailed images with a distinctive glossy finish.

Francis Frith (1822-1898) was a British photographer and founder of the photographic publishing house Francis Frith & Co. He is best known for his extensive documentation of the Middle East, particularly Egypt, in the mid-19th century. Frith began his career as a successful businessman in the grocery trade, but after a trip to Egypt in 1856, he became fascinated with photography and began taking pictures of the country's ancient ruins and landscapes. He returned to Egypt several times over the next decade and amassed a collection of more than 3,000 photographs. In 1859, Frith founded his own photographic publishing company, which specialised in producing high-quality prints of his photographs of the Middle East. The company became one of the most successful of its kind in the Victorian era, and Frith's images helped popularise Egypt and the Middle East as tourist destinations. Today, his photographs are considered important historical documents and are held in collections around the world.

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Date

1856 - 1859
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Source

Rijksmuseum
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Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication")

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