Bas-relief 'The Gods of the Nile' in terra cotta

The bas‑relief represents deities associated with the Nile, reflecting 19th‑century European interest in Egyptian mythology and antiquities. By reproducing the relief in photographic form, Laffon provided scholars and students with a visual reference to a subject that was otherwise accessible only through travel or costly casts.

Laffon employed the photographic processes available in the early 1860s, capturing the relief’s surface texture and relief depth on a flat medium. The image balances clarity of detail with the soft tonal range characteristic of mid‑century wet‑plate photography, allowing the viewer to discern the sculptural modelling despite the two‑dimensional format.

Louise Laffon, a French photographer and one of the first women admitted to the Société Française de la Photographie, produced a series of photographs of objects from the Campana Collection in Paris. In 1864 the V&A acquired 500 of these works, including the *Gods of the Nile* image, through the agent Monsieur E. Cappe. The photograph has remained in the museum’s collection since that purchase.

The acquisition reflects the museum’s pioneering policy, instituted in 1852, to collect photographs as educational resources. Henry Cole, the museum’s founding director, advocated for photography as a tool to broaden visual study for artists and scholars, a vision that included contributions from female photographers like Laffon.