Skip to content
  • Open A Trade Account
  • Explore By Artist
    • Anastasia Panfilova
    • Anne Davison
      • Anne Davison Limited Edition
      • Anne Davison Open Edition
    • Amy Sia
    • Brenon Ooro
    • Christina Fedyk
    • Diane Love
    • Duncan Raban
    • Doug Chinnery
    • Elsa Carto
    • Fi Douglas
    • Gemma Blain
    • Paul Reiffer
    • Michelle Loois
    • Melissa Rey
    • Liz Jameson
    • Jen Garrido
    • Jess Loiterton
    • Oleg Magni
    • All Artists
  • Explore Artwork By Style
    • New
    • Abstract
    • Automotive
    • Cinema Greats
    • Coastal
    • Contemporary
    • Collected Curated
    • Explore By Colour
      • The Green Edit
      • The Red Edit
      • The Blue Edit
      • The Yellow Edit
      • The Neutral Edit
      • The Monochrome Edit
    • Decorative Arts
    • Groupings
    • Photography - Collected and Curated
    • Triptychs
    • Traditional
    • All Collections
  • NEW
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Log in
  • Instagram
Smith & Co Galleries
  • Open A Trade Account
  • Explore By Artist
    • Anastasia Panfilova
    • Anne Davison
      • Anne Davison Limited Edition
      • Anne Davison Open Edition
    • Amy Sia
    • Brenon Ooro
    • Christina Fedyk
    • Diane Love
    • Duncan Raban
    • Doug Chinnery
    • Elsa Carto
    • Fi Douglas
    • Gemma Blain
    • Paul Reiffer
    • Michelle Loois
    • Melissa Rey
    • Liz Jameson
    • Jen Garrido
    • Jess Loiterton
    • Oleg Magni
    • All Artists
  • Explore Artwork By Style
    • New
    • Abstract
    • Automotive
    • Cinema Greats
    • Coastal
    • Contemporary
    • Collected Curated
    • Explore By Colour
      • The Green Edit
      • The Red Edit
      • The Blue Edit
      • The Yellow Edit
      • The Neutral Edit
      • The Monochrome Edit
    • Decorative Arts
    • Groupings
    • Photography - Collected and Curated
    • Triptychs
    • Traditional
    • All Collections
  • NEW
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Log in Cart

Item added to your cart

Access Denied
IMPORTANT! If you’re a store owner, please make sure you have Customer accounts enabled in your Store Admin, as you have customer based locks set up with EasyLockdown app. Enable Customer Accounts
Skip to product information
1 / of 2

Smith & Co Galleries

The Nile

Regular price $495.00
Regular price Sale price $495.00
Unit price /  per 
Sale Sold out
Size
Frame Finish
Share

Artist - John Greene

John Greene was an archaeologist, the well-to-do son of a banker from Boston who lived in Paris, and a photographer. By 1853 the twenty-one-year-old Greene had learned to use Le Gray's waxed-paper process, the technique of choice for traveling Frenchmen. That same year he made the first of two expeditions to Egypt and Nubia, bringing back more than two hundred negatives of monuments and landscapes, some ninety-four of which, printed by Blanquart-Evrard in 1854, comprise the album "Le Nil, monuments, paysages, explorations photographiques par J. B. Greene." So rare are these albums that we assume that Greene published them at his own expense. On his second trip, in 1854-55, he not only photographed but also excavated, especially at Medinet-Habou. During an archaeological and photographic expedition to Algeria the following winter, this exceptionally talented young man died of an undisclosed illness.
Greene's Egyptian landscapes are startlingly barren. Coalescing from large, softly nuanced tonal planes, the views seem to shimmer above the page almost to the point of evaporating, like distant desert mirages. Generally, Greene placed the geological or archaeological structure of these pictures at a distance, surrounded by sand and sky. This, the most minimal of his visions, sums up the Egyptian landscape. Stretching between the great river and the endless expanse of sky, and between the great river and the desert, is a thin band of fertile earth--the ligament of life that gave rise to a great civilization. That the picture functions like a diagram may owe to Greene's knowledge of hieroglyphics; the Egyptian pictograph for "country" is a flat, floating disk, hardly more than a horizontal line.
This photograph and no. 89 were not printed by Blanquart-Evrard, but, it would seem, by the photographer himself.

 

Media:

Hahnemuhle Photo Rag® – a white, 100% cotton paper with a smooth surface texture – guarantees archival standards. Photo Rag® meets the highest industry standards regarding density, colour gamut, colour graduation and image sharpness while preserving the special touch and feel of genuine art paper. 

The Nile The Nile
Invalid password
Enter

QUICK LINKS

  • Search
  • Open A Trade Account
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Service

Subscribe to our emails

  • Instagram
Payment methods
  • American Express
  • Apple Pay
  • Diners Club
  • Discover
  • Google Pay
  • Maestro
  • Mastercard
  • PayPal
  • Shop Pay
  • Visa
© 2022, Smith & Co Galleries Powered by Shopify
  • Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.