After Owen Browne Carter (British, 1806–1859)
Lithograph by J. C. Bourne
From Views of Cairo, Robert Hay. London: Tilt and Bogue,1840.
The Ghoreeyeh
Color lithograph, 14 5/8 x 21 3/8 in.
Printed lower left: On Stone by J.C. Bourne from a Drawing by O.B. Carter Arch.t, M & N Hanhart, Lit Printer, lower right: The Ghooreeyeh
1995.73

Carter was one of several artists accompanying the British antiquarian and explorer Robert Hay on an eight-year project to document Egyptian ruins and urban views. When Hay departed Egypt in 1834, he had collected an enormous cache of sketches, detailed drawings of murals and inscriptions, architectural plans, plaster casts and objects. Some of the drawings depict buildings and environments that no longer exist or have greatly changed, making them exceedingly valuable to archaeologists and historians. Hay, however, was able to publish only one luxurious and very expensive publication, Views of Cairo, 1840, which did not sell well because of its exorbitant price. Forty-nine portfolios of drawings entered the British Library (now British Museum), and many of Hay’s Egyptian antiquities were sold to the Boston banker, Samuel Alds Way, whose son, Charles Granville Way, donated them to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.