Untitled (Beggar in Cairo)

The official photographer of King Victor Emmanuel II, and well known in Italy and Europe for his carefully staged genre scenes and outdoor tableaux vivants, Carlo Naya was one of the many prominent photographers who visited the Near East during the second half of the nineteenth century. Influenced by the Orientalist movement in painting, he traveled to the area with the express purpose of producing a series of Orientalist scenes, which, at the time, were in great demand on the European market. In addition to being a master photographer and printer, Naya obviously possessed all the qualities of a talented stage director as well as a profound knowledge of art history. In most of the scenes he photographed one can discern a direct influence of Renaissance composition, as though his images were sketches for murals or altarpieces. This photograph is part of the extensive set of images he created during a stay in Cairo, where he produced striking portrait studies together with exceptionally beautiful tableaux of street scenes. His photographs are always incomparably lifelike and realistic. The precision of execution and the closeness to established canons of art make Naya's Orientalist photographs stand out today, as they did in their time.