ATHENIAN & ARCHAEOLOGICAL

 

The Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Strasbourg recently organised a small exhibition based on the Adolf Michaelis collection of some 2,300 mid-19th century photographs of ancient Greek sites and monuments, accompanied by a modest 80-page catalogue. The photographers were the usual suspects (Henri Beck, Aloïs Beer, Paul des Granges, Paul Bette, Pascal Sébah, Philippos Margaritis, Dimitris Konstantinou and William Stillman), and many of the images will be familiar, illustrating once again the restricted range of subjects chosen by both foreign and Greek photographers of that period; as Martine Breuillot comments in an accompanying essay, "during the 1850s, photography in Greece was strictly Athenian and archaeological". Sensibly, the most dramatic image, a panoramic view of Piraeus harbour by des Granges, has been placed on the cover of the catalogue, which includes extensive and informative captions (in French).