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The Outermost Coffin, Spring 1926. Harry Burton (British, 1879–1940). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Archives of the Department of Egyptian Art.
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
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The Pharaoh's Photographer: Harry Burton, Tutankhamun, and the Metropolitan's Egyptian Expedition
September 11, 2001–March 3, 2002
Egyptian Art, 1st floor, Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries, Gallery for Special Exhibitions
Chosen from the archives of the Department of Egyptian Art, some sixty photographs taken between 1918 and 1939 by members of the Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Expedition are on view. A collaboration between the Department of Egyptian Art and the Department of Photographs, the exhibition presents these images both in their context as important documents of the Museum's excavations and as works of artistic merit that deserve a place in the history of photography. The majority of the photographs are by Harry Burton (1879–1940), the outstanding archaeological photographer of his day. Trained as an art photographer in Florence, Italy, he was hired by the Metropolitan to make a photographic record of ancient Egyptian monuments at Thebes (including architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings). He also became the photographer for the Museum's excavation team and, after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, his services were shared with Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. All phases of Burton's work in Egypt are represented, including selections from his Tutankhamun portfolio and film footage dating to the early 1920s.
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