Description

4 albumen photographs, 260 x 329 mm. Four original albumen photographs showing panoramas of Jerusalem, including the "Mosque d'Omar" (the Dome of the Rock, or Qubbat as-Sakra) and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as they stood in the middle of the 19th century. - Little is known about the Austrian photographer Otto von Ostheim, despite the numerous beautiful photos of the Holy Land and Middle East that he took during his travels. A former cavalry officer, at some point he retired to become a photographer with a studio in Jerusalem. He accompanied, as official photographer, tours of the Levant undertaken by the Count of Paris, the Duke of Chartres and the Count of Chambord. - Only one of the four is visibly signed and dated in-plate (the "Mosque d'Omar"), and its date quite early year of 1860, a full decade earlier than the later and better-known photographers of the Holy Land who began work in the 1870s. - Two photos lightly faded, subtle creasing at corners; very well preserved.