Tomb of the Virgin, Jerusalem (1854): Art, History and Details

Tomb of the Virgin, Jerusalem (1854) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Auguste Salzmann (French, 1824–1872).

The work and its context

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

In 1854, Auguste Salzmann was commissioned by the French Ministry of Public Instruction to document the holy city of Jerusalem. His charge was to substantiate the controversial theories about dating ancient ruins proposed by his friend, Louis Félicien de Saulcy, a noted antiquarian. Unlike almost all other photographers documenting architecture in the 19th century, Salzmann relied on extreme close-up views. In this example, he eliminated most of the building, concentrating on the door of the tomb and its surrounding architectural elements. As a result, all indications of scale, terrain, placement, and context normally found in documentary photographs are absent, while the abstract textural and surface qualities of the tomb are emphasized.

Object facts

• Title: Tomb of the Virgin, Jerusalem
• Date: 1854
• Creator attribution: Auguste Salzmann (French, 1824–1872)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Photograph
• Technique: salted paper print, Blanquart-Évrard process, from waxed paper negative
• Dimensions: Image: 22.7 x 32.8 cm (8 15/16 x 12 15/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
• Collection: PH - French 19th Century
• Department: Photography
• Accession number: 1996.10

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, “The Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Major Works,” March 18, 1996, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.