Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, has placed a temporary export bar on a rare photograph, ‘Pasha and Bayadère’, by Roger Fenton.

Margaret Hodge has placed an temporary export bar on the photograph by the pioneering 19th-century British photographer to provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the photograph in this country.

Roger Fenton (1819-69) was a highly-regarded British photographer and one of the first-ever war photographers.  Best known for his images of the Crimean War, he also produced landscapes, portraits, still-lives and tableaux vivants during a career which only lasted just over a decade.  Pasha and Bayadère was created in 1858 as part of a series of about 50 Orientalist photographs inspired by Fenton’s expedition to the Crimea.

The series reflected the Victorian fascination with the ‘exotic’ Middle East.  In the photo, staged in his London studio, Fenton himself appears as the ‘Pasha’ (a Turkish military or civil official), watching a bayadère, or dancing girl, perform.  The role of the musician is played by the English landscape painter Frank Dillon.

The photograph is one of only two examples of this image, the other being in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.  The Getty’s version is uncropped and believed to be a proof, making this version, cropped for exhibition, in a sense unique.  It was not intended to be a documentary image of daily life in Turkey or Egypt, but a fantasy about what the Orient stood for.  Fenton’s aim was to marry the Orientalist subject matter popular in painting of the period with the new medium of photography to create a work of high art.  Regarded as one of the best in his Orientalist series, and one of Fenton’s best works overall, Pasha and Bayadère is technically highly accomplished, with a strong composition and beautiful lighting.

Margaret Hodge has placed an temporary export bar on the photograph to provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the photograph in this country.  The Minister’s ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, administered by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA).  The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the photograph is of outstanding aesthetic importance and of outstanding significance for the study of the history of photography.

Lord Inglewood, Chairman of the Reviewing Committee, said: “Photography is sometimes undervalued in this country, but Pasha and Bayadère demonstrates how the best photographs can hold their own aesthetically against other art forms.  As well as being a remarkable image, the work is also important for the study of the history of photography.  The fact that the Getty Museum chose to make their own version of this image the subject of a scholarly monograph shows just how highly Fenton’s work is regarded outside the UK.”

The decision on the export licence application for the photograph will be deferred for a period ending on 1st May 2010 inclusive.  This period may be extended until 1st August 2010 inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the photograph at the recommended price of £108,506 is expressed.

Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the photograph should contact the owner’s agent through the Secretary of The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Wellcome Wolfson Building, 165 Queen’s Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5HD  Tel: 020 7273 8270, email: frances.wilson@mla.gov.uk