Ashmolean Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

The Creswell archive at the Ashmolean Museum comprises over 8000 negatives. The majority of these are plastic, but over a 1000 are fragile glass plates. Around 2400 pieces arrived loose and unidentified, but the majority of the negatives reached Oxford in indexed cloth-bound negative books.

No catalogue of the negative collection was included with the shipment, and a negative for each of Creswell’s known prints did not reach the museum – these are now presumed lost. As a result, the assessment, sorting, and cataloguing of this collection has required time and care over many years¹.

The geographic area covered by Creswell’s photographic surveys is vast, extending from Spain to Iraq. He documented sites dating from the late 7th to the 18th century, concentrating particularly on the architecture of Egypt and the Levant between the 12th and 15th centuries. His photographs were mainly taken during the second quarter of the 20th century, using professional equipment including a Contessa Nettel (Stuttgart) camera, a Sinclair mahogany camera, and Zeiss lenses.

Creswell photographing on the rooftop of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo, in 1960..   Interior of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo, AD 876-879 (Museum No: EA.CA.4813).

His attention to detail is evident in his photographs, and his athleticism and head for heights were legendary. He captured not only the grandeur of the architecture, but also the wealth and intricacy of its decoration, paying particular attention to inscriptions. He also achieved a number of aerial views documenting entire sites, such as Samarra (Iraq).

Detail of the inscription on complex of Amir Sunqur Saʿdi, Cairo, 14th century (Museum No: EA.CA.477.

Creswell used many of his photographs to illustrate his major publications, most notably, his magisterial volumes: Early Muslim Architecture, published in two parts: part 1 in 1932 (later revised and reprinted in 1969), and part 2 in 1940; and The Muslim Architecture of Egypt: vol. 1 published in 1952, vol. 2 in 1959, with a third volume left unfinished at the time of his death. A large number of his pictures remain unpublished to this day.

Title page from Creswell's Early Muslim Architecture I.   A page from Creswell's Early Muslim Architecture I.   A page from Creswell's Early Muslim Architecture I.

The importance of this archive is far-reaching. Creswell’s photographs accurately document the architecture of the Islamic Middle East as it stood in the first half of the 20th century. They therefore include buildings that no longer exist, are now under threat of damage or even destruction, or have undergone radical programmes of restoration that may mask important structural or decorative information. In such instances, Creswell’s historic photographs provide an essential source of documentation for historians and conservators alike.

Creswell’s negatives at the Ashmolean have been scanned and are available to browse and search online. In addition, the Fine Arts Library of Harvard University holds a collection of about 2700 Creswell prints which also available online via the ArchNet website.

 

¹ This work was generously supported by the Barakat Trust, The British Academy, and the University of Oxford.

References

The Creswell Archive @ The Ashmolean Museum: http://creswell.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/HomePage.html

 

The K.A.C. Creswell Archive @ ArchNet: http://www.archnet.org/library/images/sites.jsp?select=collection&key=963