Leavitt Hunt Col . Leavitt Hunt ( 1831 – February 16 , 1907 ) was a Harvard - educated attorney and photography pioneer who was one of the first people to photograph the Middle East . He and a companion , Nathan Flint Baker , traveled to Egypt , the Holy Land , Lebanon , Turkey and Greece on a Grand Tour in 1851 – 52 , making one of the earliest photographic records of the Arab and ancient worlds , including the Great Sphinx and the Great Pyramid of Giza , views along the Nile River , the ruins at Petra and the Parthenon in Greece . Biography . The youngest son of General Jonathan Hunt of Vermont and the former Jane Maria Leavitt , and brother to architect Richard Morris Hunt and painter William Morris Hunt , Leavitt Hunt was born in Brattleboro , Vermont , but grew up in Paris following the early death of his father Jonathan Hunt , a Vermont Congressman whose father had been the state ' s Lieutenant Governor . Leavitt Hunt attended the Boston Latin School , and subsequently enrolled in a Swiss boarding school , finally taking a law degree from the University of Heidelberg . He then enrolled at the Swiss Military Academy in Thun . Hunt was a scholar : he was fluent in French , German , Italian , Latin , Greek and Hebrew , and could write in both Persian and Sanskrit . Hunt ' s companion on his Middle Eastern journey was a wealthy sculptor from Ohio and friend of the Hunt family . Nathan Flint Baker had been travelling in Europe for a decade , and announced his intention to travel through the Middle East . Hunt decided to join him , meeting him in Florence , Italy , in late September 1851 . Hunt and Baker spent several weeks in Rome practicing photography , and then sailed from Naples to Malta and eventually up the Nile River into the Sinai Peninsula , to Petra ( where they were among the first to photograph the ruins ) , then on to Jerusalem , to what is today Lebanon , then on to Constantinople and Athens , before returning to Paris in May 1852 . Hunt ' s and Baker ' s photographs were dazzling , especially for a brand - new medium many had never seen before . They photographed the Great Sphinx and the Pyramids at Giza , the templex complex at Karnak , the Ramesseum at Thebes , and the ruins on the Island of Philae . They travelled farther to photograph the Monastery of St . Catherine at Mount Sinai , the tombs and temples of Petra , the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem , the ruins at Baalbek , and finally the buildings of the Acropolis in Athens . The 60 extant photographs from their journey show that Hunt and Baker were keen on the new medium and familiar with its techniques . It was a real partnership : both men brought their own strengths to the process , and images that survive demonstrate their aesthetic acumen as well as their journalistic desire to show the settings in which they worked . One image of an unveiled Ghawazee female dancer , signed on the negative by Hunt himself , is likely the earliest photographic portrait of a Middle Eastern woman . Another image of the less photogenic view from the rear of the Parthenon demonstrates two men unafraid to indulge their take on a revered landmark . The trip was a logistical challenge . Accompanying the two travelers for part of the journey were Leavitt Hunt ' s older brother , the architect Richard Morris Hunt , and two other friends . The group hired a " dahaheah " and a crew of 13 Egyptians to take them down the Nile River . Architect Hunt , later famous for his Gilded Age Newport palazzos , painted and made sketches along the Nile while his younger brother and Baker took photographs . ( The results were later shown at a 1999 exhibition in Washington , D . C . ) Following their arduous journey , the pair of no - longer - neophyte photographers returned to Paris and made prints from their 18x24 cm negatives which were made using a waxed - paper process . Having developed the negatives , each man kept a personal album of the prints . The young Hunt showed his to the German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt , who brought them to the attention of the King of Prussia , and Hunt made a formal gift of 11 prints to Karl Richard Lepsius , the German founder of the study of ancient Egyptology . Baker left his album with a New York dealer to discern commercial interest in the prints . Following their extraordinary journey , the two men took divergent paths . Baker returned to Cincinnati , Ohio , to enjoy the life of a wealthy aesthete , while Hunt completed his studies at the Swiss Military Institute , then returned to America where he took a second law degree , this one from Harvard . He began practicing law in New York City , the home of his brother Richard Morris Hunt , until the outbreak of the American Civil War , when he enlisted as lieutenant on the staff of General Heintzelman . Eventually he was promoted to lieutenant colonel for bravery at the Battle of Malvern Hill . Hunt subsequently attained the rank of full colonel and assistant adjutant general in the Union Army . Following the Civil War , Leavitt Hunt returned to New York City and his law practice for several years , until he retired in 1867 to Weathersfield , Vermont , where his wife Katherine Jarvis had inherited the estate belonging to her father William Jarvis , a prominent Vermont businessman and diplomat best known as the first importer of Merino sheep into America . Leavitt Hunt purchased his own estate at nearby Weathersfield Bow and became a gentleman farmer . Hunt was particularly interested in the rare breeds of Dutch cattle that he raised , as well as the white pine forests he propagated on his estate , which he dubbed " Elmsholme " . During his retirement as a farmer , Hunt also became an inventor , with several patents for new plows . As far as is known , neither Hunt nor his companion Baker ever showed much interest in the photographic medium after their journey . Their prints are rarely seen , very scarce , and are among the most valuable early photographic images . Hunt ' s personal album is now in the collection of the Bennington Art Museum , Bennington , Vermont . Baker ' s album evidently disappeared . The collection of photos presented to Egyptologist Richard Lepsius is housed at the Museum Ludwig ' s AgfaPhoto - Historama in Cologne , Germany . Hunt ' s personal negatives are believed lost , but the prints he made became the property of his brother Richard Morris Hunt . They are now preserved in the Richard Morris Hunt Papers at the American Architectural Foundation in Washington , D . C . A 1999 show at the American Architectural Foundation ' s Octagon Museum showcased Leavitt Hunt ' s 1853 journey . Entitled " A Voyage of Discovery : The Nile Journal of Richard Morris Hunt " , the exhibition consisted of seventy of Leavitt Hunt ' s original photographic prints , as well as drawings and watercolors by Richard Morris Hunt from the museum ' s Prints and Drawings Collection . Some of Leavitt Hunt ' s personal prints were donated by his family after his death to the Library of Congress , where they are part of the permanent photographic collection . There are also a few original prints from this early Middle East trip in the Hallmark Photographic Collection and at the George Eastman House in Rochester , New York . Harvard University ' s Harrison D . Horblit Collection of Early Photography also owns several of the works by Hunt and Baker . Although Leavitt Hunt never returned to photography , he remained vitally interested in the arts until the end of his life , corresponding with fellow Harvard - educated lawyer and author Henry Dwight Sedgwick , as well as other intellectuals of the era . He and his wife travelled frequently , often crossing paths with family friends like Joseph Hodges Choate and Thomas Jefferson Coolidge . He also wrote poetry on the side . Perhaps the highest tribute paid Leavitt Hunt and his brothers was that of Ralph Waldo Emerson . " The remarkable families " , Emerson wrote , were " the three Jackson brothers . . . the three Lowell brothers . . . the four Lawrences . . . the Cabots . . . the three Hunts , William , Richard and Leavitt ( William Hunt tells also of his brother John , in Paris ) ; the Washburns , three governors , I believe . " Clyde du Vernet Hunt , who graduated from Andover and Harvard Law School , and subsequently became a painter and sculptor accepted by the Paris Salon , was the son of Leavitt Hunt and his wife , the former Katherine Jarvis . A portrait of Leavitt Hunt painted by his brother William Morris Hunt in 1874 is in the permanent collection of the Brooks Memorial Library , Brattleboro ' s main library . Artist William Morris Hunt sketched other members of his brother Leavitt ' s family as well . Jarvis Hunt , another son of Col . Hunt and his wife , became a noted Chicago architect . Leavitt Hunt ' s wife Katherine , daughter of businessman William Jarvis , died June 6 , 1916 , at Lakewood , New Jersey , and was interred with her husband at Weathersfield . Leavitt Hunt predeceased his wife , dying at Weathersfield on February 16 , 1907 . The couple ' s infant son Morris Hunt , who died in 1871 , is interred with his parents .