Restanten van de tempel van Hercules en een theater in Pompeï c. 1860 - 1900

This albumen print shows the Temple of Hercules and a theater in Pompeii, and was made by Giorgio Sommer in the 19th century. In the 1800s, photography provided a new way to document archeological sites. The materiality of photography – the precise chemistry and optics needed to fix an image – lent an air of scientific objectivity. But it was also a business. Sommer mass-produced these images for tourists eager to possess their own version of Italy’s rich past. Consider the labor at play here: not just the skilled work of Sommer and his studio, but also the countless, often enslaved, hands that originally quarried and carved the stones we see in the picture. Photography has the power to collapse time, and remind us of the human effort, and the social conditions, that lie behind every object we encounter.