Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson photographed the Cesnola antiquities for the album The Antiquities of Cyprus, discovered (principally on the sites of the ancient Golgoi and Idalium), published in London in 1873. Marangou describes him as a professional photographer of antiquities and works of art, popular in London, who wrote articles on photography for the magazines of the time. She calls him the official photographer of the British Museum and of the Arundel Society¹.

The album was first prepared for the London exhibition of Luigi Palma di Cesnola's collection, shown in 1872 by Rollin and Feuardent at 61 Great Russell Street. By the time it appeared, nearly a year later, the Metropolitan Museum had bought the antiquities and they had gone to New York¹. The objects were photographed in London, not in Cyprus¹. The cover credits the photographs to Thompson, with a selection by Charles Thomas Newton and an introduction by Sidney Colvin. W. A. Mansell and Co. of Percy Street, London, printed the set of 36 loose folio photographs on mounts stamped "Mansell", sold complete for four pounds four shillings or as single plates¹.

Claude Delaval Cobham's Excerpta Cypria (1908) lists the album in its bibliography³. The Cultural Centre of the Cyprus Popular Bank bought a copy in 1996, and Thompson's photographs are the main source of the illustrations in Marangou's 2000 book on Cesnola¹. His dates of birth and death are not recorded.