Jérusalem, Fontaine Arabe, 2
Auguste Salzmann French
Printer Imprimerie photographique de Blanquart-Évrard, à Lille French
Not on view
This photograph presents one of six monumental sabils, or fountains, built by Süleyman the Magnificent in 1536–37. The fountain satisfied everyday and ritual necessities: water flowed for drinking as well as for the cleansing of the face, hands, and feet before prayer. Salzmann places the arched structure slightly off-center in a narrow depth of field, a strategy that accentuates its grandiosity in the flat landscape. The blank sky heightens the fountain’s sculptural qualities and isolates it as a specimen of regional architecture for close study.