id: 159466 accession number: 1996.241 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1996.241 updated: 2025-02-09 05:20:03.397000 Cités et ruines Américaines: Mitla, Palenque, Izamal, Chichén-Itzá, Uxmal: The Nunnery, Uxmal, 1860. Claude-Joseph-Désiré Charnay (French, 1828–1915). Albumen print from wet collodion negative; image: 40.5 x 27 cm (15 15/16 x 10 5/8 in.); matted: 66 x 55.9 cm (26 x 22 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1996.241 title: The Nunnery, Uxmal title in original language: series: Cités et ruines Américaines: Mitla, Palenque, Izamal, Chichén-Itzá, Uxmal series in original language: creation date: 1860 creation date earliest: 1860 creation date latest: 1860 current location: creditline: John L. Severance Fund copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: albumen print from wet collodion negative department: Photography collection: PH - French 19th Century type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Claude-Joseph-Désiré Charnay (French, 1828–1915) - artist Claude-Joseph-Désiré Charnay French, 1828-1915 Désiré Charnay was an explorer almost from the beginning. Born in Fleurieux, he finished his education at the Lycée Charlemagne in Paris before traveling to Germany and Britain, and in 1850 moved to New Orleans to teach. After reading John Lloyd Stephens' popular accounts of his travels in Central America, published a decade before, Charnay returned to France to plan a trip of his own. In 1857 he traveled from France first to Boston, through the United States, and finally to Mexico. From 1858–60 he visited Mitla, Palenque, Chichen-Itza, and Uxmal. He photographed the sites, but was unable to conduct further archaeological research. Upon his return to France, Charnay published a portfolio of nearly 50 views; a smaller edition appeared shortly thereafter. His animated account of his travels was accompanied by an essay on the monuments themselves by architectural historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. Through this success, he was appointed photographer and writer to an official expedition to Madagascar in 1863. He later returned to Mexico and in 1875 traveled as a journalist to Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. He was sent by the French government to Java and Australia (1878-79). In the early 1880s he finally made the full-fledged archaeological expedition to the Yucatan Peninsula that he had dreamed of some 30 years before. In later years he returned again to Mexico, visited the United States, where he saw the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, and made a voyage to Yemen. Charnay's photographs, made with negatives of both paper and glass, combined a reverence for the past with the artistic and documentary possibilities of the new medium of photography. They are valued today for both their archaeological and their aesthetic content. T.W.F. * Gide et J. Baudry - publisher --- measurements: Image: 40.5 x 27 cm (15 15/16 x 10 5/8 in.); Matted: 66 x 55.9 cm (26 x 22 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in ink on verso: "T.C. Bigelow / Western Court Facade / Called the 'Serpent Temple' " translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE (Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York, NY) date: footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: June 3, 1996 footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Charnay, Désiré. Cités et ruines Américaines Mitla, Palenqué, Izamal, Chichen-Itza, Uxmal. Paris: Gide, 1862. . page number: pl. 44 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. page number: Reproduced: P. 122 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1996.241/1996.241_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1996.241/1996.241_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1996.241/1996.241_full.tif