Frith, Francis, 1822 -1898 (photographer)
Biography
Francis Frith was born on December 7th 1822 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, to a Quaker family (Sackett 1994). He was educated at Ackworth School and Quaker Camp Hill School in Birmingham (Browne and Partnow 1983, p.212). After serving an apprenticeship with a Sheffield cutlery firm, he began a wholesale grocery firm, Liverpool, and later a printing firm (Sackett 1994). He took up photography in 1850 and in the mid-1850s retired from his successful business career. In 1853 he was one of the founders of the Liverpool Photographic Society (Turner 1995, p794). He made his first photographic visit to Egypt in 1856-57. He travelled on the Nile and photographed from Cairo to Abu Simbel. On his return he published a series of views which were enthusiastically received. He made a second trip with his assistant Frank Mason Good in late 1857. A third photographic trip was made in 1859 when Frith travelled beyond the Sixth Cataract. On his return from this third trip Frith set up as a photographer and publisher. His company produced a detailed record of English villages and towns, eventually becoming the largest mass production company in Europe. For a list of Frith photographic publications see: Gernsheim, Helmut (1984), 'Incunabula of British photographic literature : a bibliography of British books illustrated with original photographs'. London: Scolar in association with Derbyshire College of Higher Education.
In 1860 Frith married Mary Ann Rosling. They had five sons and three daughters. Frith died on February 25th 1898. His sons Eustace and Cyril continued the business (Sackett 1994). The firm survived until the 1960s.
Sources:
Browne, Turner and Partnow, Elaine (1983), 'Macmillian biographical encyclopedia of photographic artists and innovators'. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Sackett, Terrance R. (1993) 'Francis Frith'. In: Dictionary of National Biography [CD-ROM]. [S.l.]: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Turner, Jane ed. (1996), 'The dictionary of art'. Volume 11. New York: Grove.
Found in 21 Collections and/or Records:
Antiques at Biggeh, opposite Philae, 1857
232 x 153 mm. A view showing the temple ruins in the foreground with the granite formation beyond which looks over the island of Philae. Frith was obviously pleased with this composition: 'Ah, brother Photographers! With a sky like that, and such subjects, and a bottle of splendid pale - not ale - but, collodion, you only can imagine the glory of such a day.'
Assouan [Aswan], 1857
228 x 157 mm. A fine landscape taken from the top of a hill opposite the Isle of Elephantine and looking north along the Nile. Two Europeans stand in the foreground watching the scene below where dhows are moored along the riverbank unloading produce. The town itself is visible on the skyline in the distance.
Cleopatra's Temple at Erment [Armant], 1857
157 x 229 mm. A view showing the ruins of Cleopatra's Temple (about five miles south of Thebes) with an Arab sitting on broken rubble in the foreground.
Cleopatra's Temple at Erment [Armant] near thebes, 1857
211 x 160 mm. A view showing the standing columns of the Temple at Erment (also spelt Armant) with piles of rubbish and a seated figure in the foreground. In his commentary Frith condemns the contemporary prejudice that anything less than three thousand years old is considered 'degenerate', modern - of no interest.
Crocodile on a sand bank, 1857
233 x 156 mm. A view showing a large crocodile (probably dead) on the banks of the Nile in the Philae region.
Doum palm and ruined mosque, Philae, 1857
229 x 164 mm. A pleasing composition looking up towards the ruined mosque and the rocky hillside from the bank of the Nile, with a clump of palms in the foreground.
Entrance to the Great Temple, Luxor, 1857
231 x 161 mm. A view showing the massive stone entrance to the temple with carved hieroglyphics over its face and flanked by two monumental statues of Rameses II buried to the shoulders in the sand and the rubble. Beyond the entrance can be seen the tower of a mosque of more recent date.
Koum Ombo, Upper Egypt, 1857
Pylon gateway at Medinet Haboo [Habu], 1857
155 x 230 mm. A view showing the massive gateway with sculptured hieroglyphics leading to an inner courtyard at Medinet Haboo, on the western bank of the Nile at Thebes. Frith comments: 'But perhaps nothing will strike the traveller more, as he wanders through these wonderful ruins, than the succession of pylon-gateways, leading from one immense sculptured court to another. The one now represented is, I believe, the third from the entrance.'
Sculptures from the outer wall, Dendera, 1857
231 x 160 mm. A view showing a wall of finely carved hieroglyphics on the exterior wall of the temple of Hat-Hor at Dendera. It was from this temple that S.L. Saulnier and J.B. Lelorrain looted the famous zodiac of Dendera.
South edge of the Island of Philae, 1857
235 x 156 mm. A view looking across the Nile towards the riverwall and temples of Philae. Visible behind the wall are part of Pharaoh's Bed and the pylon gateways of the Great Temple.
The approach to Philae, 1857
The broken obelisk, Karnac, 1857
226 x 160 mm. A view showing a European and two Arabs standing among the ruins of Kamac in front of the fallen obelisk. IN the background stand the Hall of Columns and another obelisk.
The great pylon at Edfou, Upper Egypt, 1857
232 x 163 mm. A view showing the massive entrance to the temple of Horus at Edfu, with a group of Europeans standing at the base of the pylon on which are sculpted various scenes. The drifting sand, which in this print reaches to the top of the wall behind the pylon on which are sculpted various scenes, has subsequently been removed to leave a temple in a remarkable state of preservation.
The statue of Memnon, Plain of Thebes, 1857
232 x 155 mm. A view showing the two vast seated statues of Amenophis III which were erected in front of the mortuary temple, now disappeared. In the foreground are two Europeans and an Egyptian. The central figure (leaning on a rifle) is identified in 'Creative Camera' (December 1979) in a similar, though not identical view, as being Frith himself.
The statues of Memnon, plain of Thebes, 1857
150 x 224 mm. A view showing a close up of the statues in a vertical formal. There is an European holding a rifle, and a camel, standing in the foreground.
The temple palace, Medinet Haboo [Habu], 1857
233 x 156 mm. A view showing the ruins of the Palace of Rameses II at Medinet Haboo with an Arab and his horse standing in the courtyard in the foreground.
Valley of the Tombs of the Kings, 1857
View at Girgeh [Jirja], Upper Egypt, 1857
154 x 226 mm. A view looking towards the Nile with the tower of a ruined mosque standing on the banks and balanced in the composition by two palm trees in the foreground. Frith states that there are also huts in the foreground which were: 'composed of Doura straw, and are the temporary portable homes a troupe of Gawazee, or dancing girls.'
View from Philae, looking north, 1857
234 x 152 mm. A view showing the temple colonnades at the left of the print with the Nile winding away through a rocky landscape beyond. The island of Philae lies above the Asswan Dam, completed in 1906, and when the sluices were closed, the island was submerged. With the building of the second dam the problem of the survival of the monuments at Philae became acute and a twenty year project to remove the buildings to Agilkia has recently been completed.
View on the Island of Philae, 1857
229 x 152 mm. A view showing part of the temple of Isis and the colonnade leading up to it, with broken rubble and stone in the foreground.