Vintage Photography – Hippolyte Arnoux

The history of vintage photography in Egypt has been very much enriched by the work of Hippolyte Arnoux. Arnoux, a French commercial photographer was based in a studio in Port Said. His history is sketchy, but he is  known to have been active in the middle east from the 1860s to the 1890s. He definitely collaborated with Antonio Beato in Luxor and the Zangaki brothers who like Arnoux were based in Port Said.Arnoux is well known for his vintage photographs of topographical subjects and quirky studio photographs depicting traditional life and costume.

In the 1860s he famously photographed the excavation for the Suez Canal and published the resulting photographs as Album du Canal de Suez. Arnoux also created some of the most collectible vintage photographs of the pyramids, the sphinx and the Muslim holy places. There are very few albums of vintage photography dating from the second half of the 19th century, brought home by grand tourists, that do not contain images by Hippolyte Arnoux.

According to Dr. Nikos Kokkinos, Wingate Scholar and Research Fellow at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College, London,  – “Some photos of the Suez Canal taken by Arnoux, particularly those depicting locations south of Port-Said, were to be found later with the names of the Zangaki Bros or Peridis & Georgiladakis attached. I imagine that the Greek photographers somehow ‘inherited’ the negatives of Arnoux. Or, possibly, they worked for Arnoux before they started their own businesses (in Port-Said and later Cairo), and that they may even have taken the photographs themselves in the first place on behalf of Arnoux. Unfortunately we do not know much about their relationships or exact dates – but Arnoux must have been the oldest, already working in 1869 in (sic) the opening of the Suez Canal. Alternatively, the Greek photographers may have bought the negatives in the open market after the death of Arnoux. This is an area on which I am still gathering information, and bibliography is very thin on the ground.”

Sam Scribbler

Vintage Photography - Egypt - Hippolyte Arnoux

Vintage Photography  Images by Hippolyte Arnoux.

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