Fountaine de la Sophie, Constantinople (c. 1854): Art, History and Details

Fountaine de la Sophie, Constantinople (c. 1854) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ernest de Caranza (French, 1837–1863).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Arriving in Istanbul (then Constantinople) in 1852, Ernest de Caranza, a French factory engineer, took many photographs during his extensive travels on scientific missions throughout the Asiatic part of the Ottoman Empire. Self-taught as a photographer, he relied on the waxed paper negative process, created his own materials, and formulated an excellent fixative which tended to gray the blacks, giving the images a remarkable transparency in the shadows. In this charming view, he described the surrounding streetscape while concentrating on the distinctive, ancient architecture of the centrally positioned building. His beautifully descriptive photographs helped to shape Westerners' understanding of this historic city.

Object facts

• Title: Fountaine de la Sophie, Constantinople
• Date: c. 1854
• Creator attribution: Ernest de Caranza (French, 1837–1863)
• Culture: France
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: salted paper print from paper negative
• Dimensions: Image: 16.8 x 23.3 cm (6 5/8 x 9 3/16 in.); Matted: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
• Collection: PH - British 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 2001.148

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.