More history from the UK. Royal tours are often thought to be a modern phenomenon but as these rare photos demonstrate, the Royal Family has been travelling abroad on diplomatic missions for hundreds of years. But while the international efforts of the likes of Henry V and Elizabeth I are only remembered in paintings, the future Edward VIIs 1862 tour of the Middle East was documented by a photographer - the first time a royal tour had been recorded this way. Like Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall in Mexico and Colombia, the then Prince of Wales spent much of his time meeting local dignitaries and politicians, although at four-months, the visit was considerably longer than todays short tours. And while modern royal tours have an entirely diplomatic function, Prince Albert - as he was then known - was sent abroad by his mother Queen Victoria for a different reason - to keep him occupied between finishing university and getting married. Despite coming just two months after the death of Prince Albert senior, Victoria was determined that the visit should go ahead. Travelling in unusually low-key style, the bereaved prince got around on horseback and slept in tents as he toured the region, meeting rulers, politicians and ambassadors as he went. Accompanying the two princes on the tour, which took in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece, was photographer Francis Bedford who used techniques that had been pioneered barely 20 years before. At the time, the idea of photographing a royal tour was a new concept, with Bedfords presence on the tour the result of Queen Victoria and Prince Alberts interest in photography. Bedford had already impressed the Queen with his photographs of places associated with Prince Alberts childhood in Germany, an earlier royal commission which secured his place on the trip. Busy: Although a diplomatic mission, the future Edward VIIs trip to the Middle East was also designed, by his mother Queen Victoria, to keep him occupied In mid-February 1862, the Photographic News announced that the Prince of Wales was to be accompanied by eight gentlemen only, including Mr Bedford, on a tour to be undertaken in as private a manner as possible. The main purpose of Bedfords work was to capture historic and sacred landscapes – the young Prince and his companions appear in only three of the 191 surviving photographs, all of which are to go on display in the Queens Gallery at Buckingham Palace from this weekend. Two of these were taken in Egypt, showing the party in front of the pyramids at Giza and at the Temple of Amun at Karnak, ancient Thebes. In the third, they are having lunch under a fig tree at Capernaum, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The rest of the photographs reflect a growing public demand for romantic images of biblical sites, Egyptian and Greek ruins, and mosques. By the 1860s leisure travel to the Middle East was increasing, stimulated by major archaeological discoveries in the region. The introduction of steamships to Alexandria in 1840 also gave Egypts fledgling tourism industry a boost, thanks to the reduction in journey times which made the area more accessible for European pilgrims and tourists. In his lifetime, Francis Bedford was considered one of the greatest British photographers, and on his return from the Middle East many of his photographs of the royal tour were exhibited to the public in a gallery on New Bond Street. Among those now on display for the first time since then are views of the Colossi of Memnon and of the Temple of Horus at Edfu on the west bank of the Nile, in which Bedfords portable darkroom can be seen in the shadow of the temple. Bedford would have had to take a large amount of equipment with him, including plates, tripods, lenses, chemicals and a darkroom, as well as the camera itself. Today royal tours are widely photographed, and the pictures are transmitted instantly around the world, comments curator Sophie Gordon. Bedfords photographs were not seen by the public until over a month after the royal partys return to England, but his presence on the tour was widely reported in the press. The intense interest in his work at the time shows just how innovative and ground-breaking a move it was to invite Bedford to accompany the tour. But Bedfords photos arent the only record of the tour. Prince Albert splashed out on antiquities, picking up ancient Egyptian papyri and other artifacts as he went along. One, which will go on display alongside Bedfords photographs, is an ancient Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the Amduat, a funerary text which describes the journey of regeneration of Re, the Egyptian sun god. Others include pottery vessels from an excavation on the island of Rhodes and a poignant marble fragment from Syria inscribed From the remains of the Christian Quarter at Damascus, May. 1862. Then, as now, the country was beset by a bloody war, this time between the Christian Maronites and the Druze, which saw the Christian quarter in Damascus burned to the ground. Read more: dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2821672/Inside-royal-tour-happened-century-ago-Rare-photos-Edward-VII-s-1862-visit-Middle-East-display.html#ixzz3IDC0A1xX Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 16:23:42 +0000
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