Viaggi e scoperte nel “Levante”. Le fotografie di Dominic Ellis Colnaghi, 1852-1854

Abstract

Dominic Ellis Colnaghi’s album “Photographs taken in 1852-53-54 in Mytilene, Rhodes, Lycia and Constantinople” is the visual companion to his journal entitled “A tour in Lycia by Mr. D.E. Colnaghi,” published as an Appendix to the 1865 book Travels & Discoveries in the Levant by archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton, with whom he had travelled in Asia Minor. Colnaghi’s photographic endeavours are recounted in his correspondence with his family, the founders of the London art publishing company P. & D. Colnaghi. These letters shed light on Colnaghi’s personality and on his relationship with some of the most important protagonists of early photography, including John Ruskin, James Robertson, Richard Leach Maddox, Adolphe Goupil, Gustave Le Gray, and many artists who toured Asia Minor during the same years.