id:			167530
accession number:	2009.277
share license status:	CC0
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2009.277
updated:		2024-03-26 02:01:17.310000

The Sphinx, c. 1853. John Beasley Greene (American, 1832–1856). Salted paper print from waxed paper negative; image: 23.2 x 29.6 cm (9 1/8 x 11 5/8 in.); mounted: 39.8 x 56.5 cm (15 11/16 x 22 1/4 in.); matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund 2009.277

title:				The Sphinx
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			c. 1853
creation date earliest:		1848
creation date latest:		1858
current location:		
creditline:			Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund
copyright:			

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culture:	America, 19th century
technique:	salted paper print from waxed paper negative
department:	Photography
collection:	PH - American 19th Century
type:		Photograph
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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CREATORS

* John Beasley Greene (American, 1832–1856)  - artist
John Beasley Greene American, b. France, 1832-1856

John Beasley Greene was born in France to American parents; his father, John Bulkley Greene, was a Boston banker working in Le Havre and then Paris. The younger Greene was a founding member of the Société française de photographie and joined the Société asiatique. He combined an early interest in archaeology and photography, working in Egypt, the Middle East, and North Africa in the brief period from 1853 until his premature death in 1856. During this time, Greene produced a body of work using the waxed paper process, outstanding in its aesthetic and technical merits and unusual in its clearly personal approach. Frequently spare and almost minimalist to a modern eye, his work emphasizes abstract form, tempered by the visual textures of his negatives and paper.
	In 1854 Blanquart-Évrard published some 94 of Greene's prints in Le Nil. Monuments et paysages. Explorations photographiques. Although similar in subject to that of Maxime Du Camp and Félix Teynard, Greene's work remains unique—depicting poetic landscapes of the Nile and the distant desert inhabited by ancient monuments. T.W.F.
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measurements: Image: 23.2 x 29.6 cm (9 1/8 x 11 5/8 in.); Mounted: 39.8 x 56.5 cm (15 11/16 x 22 1/4 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:


inscriptions:

	inscription:	mprinted in lower left of image: "M: 46"
Imprinted in lower right of image: "John Beasley Greene"
Written in pencil on recto of mount: "75"
Written in pencil on recto of mount: "M-46"
Written in pencil on verso of mount: "YE1356"
Written in pencil on lower right (then erased): "J"
Imprinted on verso: "e" with the remaining inscription removed

	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		Pyramids & Sphinxes: Views of Egypt
	opening date:   2016-02-06T00:00:00
	<i>Pyramids & Sphinxes: Views of Egypt</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 6-May 24, 2016).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	Estate of Jonathan Stein, a New York photography collector active during the 1980s and 1990s; [Lee Gallery, Winchester, MA]
	date: 
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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fun fact:


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wall description:

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RELATED WORKS

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CITATIONS

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IMAGES

web:	https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2009.277/2009.277_web.jpg
print:	https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2009.277/2009.277_print.jpg
full:	https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2009.277/2009.277_full.tif