Earliest photos of Greece on show in NY

The earliest surviving photographs of Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Jerusalem, taken in the mid-19th century, will remain on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until May 12.

The exhibition features roughly 120 daguerreotypes - the earliest form of photography - made during a three-week excursion in 1842 to the Eastern Mediterranean by French pioneer photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892).

His images from Greece include the Acropolis and the Propylaia.

The exhibition is supplemented by examples of watercolors, paintings and lithographically illustrated publications.