Arbre de la Vierge, pres du Caire (Tree of the Virgin, near Cairo)

Wilhelm Hammerschmidt, artist

active 1850-1869

Arbre de la Vierge, pres du Caire (Tree of the Virgin, near Cairo), circa 1860

Where object was made: Germany

Material/technique: albumen print

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 373 x 453 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 14 11/16 x 17 13/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 16 x 20 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Gift of the Friends of Photography

Accession number: 1996.0065

Not on display

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Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Trees & Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature & Culture," Mar-2009, Steve Goddard
This Sycamore at El Matariya, near Cairo, Egypt, is known as the Virgin’s Tree and is a site of special devotion by the Copts (Egyptian Christians), who consider it one of the places where the holy family rested during the flight into Egypt. The original tree, which presumably dated back to early Christian times, died in the seventeenth century. A new tree was planted but it fell in 1906 and a third sycamore, that still stands, was cultivated from a shoot of the fallen tree.