Jérusalem, Enceinte du Temple, Vue générale de la face Est, Pl. 1
Auguste Salzmann (French, 1824–1872)
Imprimerie photographique de Blanquart-Évrard, à Lille (French, active 1851–55)
Salted paper print from paper negative
Image: 23.1 x 31.8 cm (9 1/8 x 12 1/2 in.)
Mount: 44.5 x 60 cm (17 1/2 x 23 5/8 in.)
Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005
Not on view
This is one portion of a three-part panorama that forms an all-encompassing view from outside Jerusalem’s walls. It displays the city’s architectural diversity, including domed mosques and churches, ancient masonry, and towering minarets. Although other photographic views of Jerusalem had been produced by Maxime Du Camp and Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, Salzmann’s project was the most thorough and ambitious to date. Before its integration into the 1856 album, this panorama was offered separately in 1854. A review in the prominent Paris bulletin Annales Archéologiques suggested that the photographs forged a spiritual relationship with the sacred city: "We have here living Jerusalem. . . . An identical panorama should be exposed in all the churches and in all the seminaries, under the eyes of the young people who are destined for the priesthood; there is no description that inspires thoughts more numerous or more profound."
Inscription: Printed on mount, recto BC: "Aug. Salzmann // JÉRUSALEM // ENCEINTE DU TEMPLE // Vue générale de la face Est __ Pl. 1 // Gide et J. Baudry, éditeurs. // Imp. Photogr. de Blanquart - Evrard, à Lille."; inscribed in pencil on mount, recto TR: "12";
André Jammes Collection; [Graphics International, Ltd.]; Gilman Paper Company Collection, New York, October 7, 1978
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Faith and Photography: Auguste Salzmann in the Holy Land," September 12, 2016–February 5, 2017.
Perez, Nissan. "An Artist in Jerusalem: Auguste Salzmann." The Israel Museum Journal 1 (Spring 1982). pp. 19–50.
In 1854, Auguste Salzmann created approximately two hundred paper negatives during a four-month sojourn in Jerusalem. He recorded sixty-eight sites and categorized them, with some exceptions, by monotheistic religion—Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Many of the resulting salted paper prints were circulated privately soon after his return to Paris. In 1856, the album, Jerusalem: A Study and Photographic Reproduction of the Holy City, was first advertised as a commercial endeavor for a wider public. Photographic plates were distributed three at a time over fifty-eight installments from September 1856 through 1859. All of Salzmann’s Jerusalem photographs were printed by the preeminent Blanquart-Évrard firm of Lille, France, while their distribution was managed by Gide et Baudry of Paris. Each album was meant to include two volumes of photographic plates accompanied by an archaeological treatise authored by Salzmann. The album in The Met collection is complete with 174 unbound photographic plates.