Rare photo collection acquired, ‘most important archive on 19th century Cyprus’

The Museum of the Costas and Rita Severis Foundation, Center of Visual Arts and Research, presented on Thursday its latest acquisition, the personal photographic archive of the French archaeologist and art historian Camille Enlart from his Cyprus visits in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


The archive – 13 albums with 543 photographs – “we believe are the most important photographs we have acquired but also the most important archive on the 19th century Cyprus,” said Costas Severis.

Camille Enlart – b.1862- d.1927 – who was among the most important art historians specialising in medieval gothic architecture, took these photographs during his two missions to Cyprus, in 1896 and 1901, CVAR’s Executive Director Rita Severis said. “We believe it is perhaps the most important archive on Medieval Cyprus, portraying the monuments, topography and scenes of everyday life on the island”.

She added that based on the findings of his visits, Enlart wrote the famous book L’ Art Gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre – published in 1899 – which was translated into English by Sir David Hunt, The Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, in 1987.

Of the 543 photographs, 470 photographs are signed, mounted on strong paper, and bear hand-written inscription by Enlart himself on the reverse. Another 45 photographs were given to Enlart by friends and colleagues such as Captain Young, Tano, Luigi Balthassarre, Bellamy, Berthaud and Count Jean de Kergorlay. In the collection are also another 28 unsigned photographs.


Rita Severis said that these photographs remain a precious testimony and the only visual testimony of many of the depicted buildings concerning the medieval past of Cyprus, as many were destroyed throughout the 20th century. “Furthermore, there are scenes of everyday life in the cities and villages of Cyprus of 1896 as for example the bazaar of Nicosia, the fair of St Barnabas, the thyme sellers etc”.

Enlart taught medieval archaeology at the École Speciale d’ Architecture and at the École du Louvre and was Director of the Sculpture Museum at the Trocadero in Paris. He practiced photography in particular during his trips to Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, Syria and in Cyprus where he studied the blossoming of the Gothic art outside France.

During his principal missions in Cyprus in 1896 and 1901 he brought back to France items bought or excavated on the island. His collections – sculptures, paintings, pottery, photographs – are today preserved, in most part, in Boulogne- sur –Mere, his native city.

The photographs will not be placed as an exhibit at the museum at the moment, as they need to be restored and digitised first.


The aim, Rita Severis said, is to learn more about the buildings depicted as not all of them are recognisable sites.

Among the goals is to also organise a number of lectures and workshops in cooperation with the University of Cyprus, she said, on the history of these photos and of the buildings.

The photograph archive was bought at auction in France recently. “The acquisition has been made possible with the generous support of friends from abroad and locally; the grandson of the great man, Mr Christian Enlart, believed that this archive should return to Cyprus and to the Centre of Visual Arts and Research, Ms Ayla Gurel, Dr Marios Sarris, and others who wish to remain anonymous”.