Lichtenstern & Hariri · The Egyptomania Postcard Project 2020/1 · UCI Libraries

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Lichtenstern & Hariri studio is a perfect example of the complex and multi-cultural lives of photographers in Egypt in the early 1900s. Their history as far as we could research is at times vague or unconfirmed and yet it offers a glimpse on the all too forgotten lives of photographers of the early 20th century.

`Joseph Max Lichtenstern:`

Born in Vienna on March 19th, 1876 he eventually immigrated to Egypt sometime between 1893 - 1895. Eventually he set up a publishing company in the late 1890s under his name and partnered up with David Hariri creating the shop Lichtenstern & Hariri no later than 1902 (Starr 2009 & The Postcard Album).

Besides this shop, there continues to be contradictory accounts as to his association with other photographic studios as well as his role on the eventual sale of the Cairo Postcard Trust. In the end, what is clear is that in 1912 the business partnership with David Hariri ended, right before the outbreak of World War I (The Postcard Album).

Lichtenstern sometime after the sale made his way back to Austria-Hungary where during or after the summer of 1914 the author of The Postcard Album quoting an article by Rudolf Agstner states, ".. [Lichtenstern] served at the k.u.k. censor dept. of the fieldpost station Lemberg, Galizien. After the end of WW1 he returned to Egypt in 1919 and changed his family name to “Lister ”. J. M. Lister never entered the postcard publishing business again. He died on June 13, 1958 in Cairo" (The Postcard Album).

`David Hariri:`

David Hariri, sometimes referred to as David Harari, has even less information available than Lichtenstern. Maybe due to lack of translation or interest by both Austrian researchers or foreign photography historians, not much is known. What is known is that David Hariri was a Syrian Jew who partnered with Lichtenstern and eventually split ways in 1912 (Starr 2009).

More information is available on the various name changes the company took on a but not much is clear in the history of the individual that was David Hariri or what became of him before or after the war.

`Lichtenstern & Hariri: The Studio`

As Starr states neither Lichtenstern nor Hariri never really tried to adopt what it meant to be an Egyptian-Arab or to take on the identity of Egyptian nationals but they did choose Egypt as their home giving some contextual evidence that in some ways the lives of these two photographers showed the cosmopolitan and multicultural hub that both Egypt and the city of Cairo created for these thriving studios.

`Lichtenstern & Hariri: The Aesthetics`

The focus of Lichtenstern & Hariri's postcards tended to be centered around location. Both with the illustrated postcards and the photographs, they focused on the beauty and exoticness of Egypt's landscape and architectural sites rather than focusing on everyday Egyptian life. While occasionally people were included within the image, they were never the center focus. Perhaps the purpose of this was to promote more tourism within Egypt and whether intentional or not, generate more business through the sale of postcards.