Auguste Salzmann

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Auguste Salzmann (born April 14, 1824 in Ribeauvillé , Alsace, † February 24, 1872 in Paris ) was a French archaeologist, painter and pioneer of archaeological photography.

life and work

Salzmann came from a rich entrepreneurial family from Alsace . He was a friend of Eugène Fromentin , with whom he traveled to Algeria in 1847. In 1851, during a stay in Egypt, he met the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette and was interested in his archaeological work.

Salzmann painted landscapes and religious scenes on the one hand and was also one of the first to use photography to support archeology. Together with Louis de Clercq, he is the most important photographer from the calotype period , whose work is not determined by Egypt. His photographs from 1854 have Jerusalem as their theme and are inspired by the archaeologist Félix Caignart de Saulcy .

In 1853 he requested a mission from the French government to investigate the structures of the Order of Malta on the island of Rhodes . In reality, on December 12, 1853, he set out not for Rhodes, but for Jerusalem. His interest had meanwhile fixed on a dispute that Félix de Saulcy had started in 1851 and published in 1853 in his book Voyage autour de la mer morte (Engl .: Journey around the Dead Sea). The main argument revolved around the age of the walls of Jerusalem.

Salzmann knew Saulcy and so he changed his plans at short notice: “In the belief that I was doing science a true service, I changed my travel destination. I examined all the monuments in Jerusalem and photographed mainly those whose origin was disputed. ”He stayed in Jerusalem for four months until a fever forced him to return home. He brought back almost 200 pictures from this trip.

The most astonishing pictures in his album Jerusalem , which contains a total of 174 pictures, are undoubtedly the architectural details of the city wall of Jerusalem and fragments from excavations, which he brought into the discussion at the time as “hard facts”. Salzmann harmoniously combines his qualities as a painter with his competence as an archaeologist. His views of architectural details appear balanced and are composed like panels. There is also a very nice view of the valley of Josaphat , Bethlehem and Jerusalem in the album . From today's point of view, Salzmann's album has a greater aesthetic richness than the classic view in Du Camp's work.

The album was published in 1856 at the price of over 1,400 francs, which was completely exaggerated for the time. It didn't have the same commercial success as photographer Du Camp's album. The work was rather intended for the public interested in archeology, and their curiosity had clearly subsided in the meantime.

The magazine Le Tour du monde reproduced the pictures as woodcuts in 1860.

Works

literature

  • Photographies de la Terre Sainte par Auguste Salzmann, (in: Félix de Saulcy et la Terre Sainte ; Paris, 1982)
  • Abigail Solomon-Godeau : A Photographer in Jerusalem, 1855: Auguste Salzmann and His Times ; The MIT Press, 1981

Web links

Commons : Auguste Salzmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Salzmann, Auguste
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French archaeologist, photographer and painter
DATE OF BIRTH April 14, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Ribeauvillé , Alsace
DATE OF DEATH February 24, 1872
Place of death Paris