AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS.-The Allard Pierson Museum at the University of Amsterdam presents Mirror of Memory - Imagining Roman Antiquity in 19th Century Photography. Mirror of Memory, Imagining Roman Antiquity in Nineteenth-Century Photography is curated by students from the departments of Cultural Studies, Art History, and Archaeology at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, in close cooperation with the Rijksmuseum and the Allard Pierson Museum, where it will be on view through 25 September 2005. Mirror of Memory comprises nineteenth-century photographs depicting the monuments of Classical Antiquity in southern Italy by photographers influenced by both archaeological discoveries and the rise of tourism. Their works, many intended as objective scholarly documents, were often taken home as souvenirs. The works included in this thematic exhibition are drawn from the rich collection of nineteenth-century photographs held by the Rijksmuseum, and have never before been shown in this constellation.

With the help of these images the visitor can make a true "Grand Tour" of the various Roman ruins of southern Italy. Works by such famous nineteenth-century photographers as Altobelli, Sommer and Jones form the basis of the exhibition. Mirror of Memory takes the visitor back to the roots of modern tourism, while guidebooks, maps, prints, and souvenirs of the period make the journey complete.