Photograph of Tangiers

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Drawing details

Title: Photograph of Tangiers
Date: 1877
Media: Black and white photograph
Location: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Picture credit: Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Friends of the Fogg Art Museum Fund
Reference number: 1946.35.62
Inscriptions: Inscribed on reverse "taken by Sir Fred Leighton" in pen and ink.

Interpretation

On 04 October, 1877, Leighton wrote to his father from Tangiers in Morocco "This is a prodigiously picturesque place, and I enjoy more than I can say watching the Arabs swarming up the streets and markets, stately and grand in their picturesqueness beyond any population that I know, and particularly instructive and valuable to an artist from the sculpturesque definiteness of their forms." [Barrington, Mrs. Russell, 'The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic, Lord Leighton', George Allen, London, 1906, volume II, p.210]. This photograph looks similar to contemporary images of Tangiers and may have been taken during Leighton's trip of 1877.

Description

Photograph of five figures and part of a building. The upper half of the image was obscured, perhaps by the finger of the artist. Stored within a pocket inside the back cover of a sketchbook.