The Silver Canvas - Daguerrotype Masterpieces (Art Photography Ebook)

T H E S I L V E R C A N V A S
PLATE 42
JULES ITIER
French (1802-1877)
Portrait of an Egyptian Water Bearer
1845
Half plate
84.XT. 184.1
So INTENSE WAS the Egyptian desert sun when Itier made this daguerreotype that his camera found enough light to operate
in the dark cavern beneath the large foundation stones of an unidentified ruin across the Nile from the Temple of Kom
Ombo. Covered over with palm fronds for additional protection from the heat, this cave-like place, adjacent to a water wheel,
served as a stable for the donkeys and as a protected place for water jugs, as well as a refuge for the native helpers who
accompanied Itier on his excursion along the Nile. An identical, or similar, place must also have served Itier as a darkroom
where he could prepare his plates. 12
One aspect of this scene that makes it unusual among the growing number of images then being taken in from
Egypt is that this daguerreotype is an anthropological record, not an archaeological one. Itier clearly intended the subject of
this scene to be the turbaned, heavily robed figure with a distinctive face—a portrait of an Egyptian native. Other photographers
included natives in their views of monuments, but primarily to serve simply as human yardsticks to provide scale for
the scene. Maxime Du Camp (1822-1894) told in his journal how he used one of his servants, Hadji Ismail, for this purpose
and contrasted his personality with Fergally, another of his helpers. His interest in them, however, was piqued by
the difference in their attitudes, rather than by their racial distinctions. 13
Itier was not alone, however, in using the daguerreotype to make this type of cultural observation, for at the same
moment, in different parts of the world, two other French daguerreotypists were recording the appearance of the natives
they encountered. Theodore TifFereau (active 1842) was photographing the inhabitants in Mexico, and E. Thiesson (active
1844) was doing the same in Mozambique. Already, in 1845, the idea of a museum to house these new documents showing
different members of the human race had been proposed by Antoine Serres, a professor of comparative anatomy at the
Jardin des Plantes in Paris and the president of the Academy of Sciences. 14
In a later article entitled "Photographic Anthropologique," Serres specifically described the key role played by
the daguerreotype in determining "the truthful representation of human types." He pointed out that, with few exceptions,
previous representations of natives had been idealized and that, in fact, almost all of the illustrators had simply shown
native costumes being worn by European-looking types. "Art shone" in those representations, he said, "at the expense of
reality" What anthropology needed, Serres asserted, was the reality—naked and without art—that the daguerreotype
could provide. 15
Itier s record of this Egyptian native is, therefore, more than just a remarkable daguerreotype. It is an initial step
toward providing the visual records of racial types on which future ethnographic studies would be based.
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