Series·John Thomson, Cyprus 1878

Famagusta

7 photographs · 1878

Seven of John Thomson's 1878 negatives show Famagusta (Thomson negatives 365, 366 and 372–376). He photographed the harbour with its boats and the town's fortifications, the ruined churches seen across orchards and fields of crops, a stretch of the walls with large dressed blocks in front of them, the cathedral church of St Nicholas from a distance, its west front with the minaret, and a close view of its three west doors. Thomson's own captions on the plates call Famagusta a "city of churches dating back to the Crusades"; one of them names the cathedral, in error, "St Nicholas Bellapaix".

The negatives are held by the Wellcome Collection in London. Each item shows Wellcome's positive from the negative, the contact print made from it in 1981 and the glass plate itself. On two of the seven the 1981 print is the mirror image of the positive, and the item says so. Thomson's other views of the coastal towns are in Nicosia, Larnaca and Limassol, and a view of the ruins of the palace taken about 1880 is in the album of views.

Sources

Wellcome Collection, London. Catalogue records of John Thomson's Cyprus negatives and of the contact prints made from them in 1981.

Photographs: John Thomson, Wellcome Collection, London (Public domain)

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