The year was 1951. The streets were overflowing with a crowd of Egyptians cheering, dancing and celebrating. It was neither because of a national holiday nor a football match, but of something even more frivolous, and held no real impact on their ordinary lives: the announcement of King Farouk’s second marriage to commoner Narriman Sadek. It was the same year that indicated King Farouk’s final days in the palace. Throughout his 15 years of ruling, King Farouk understood the power of photography to create a fabricated image of a political leader, according to photographer Norbert Schiller. Unlike his father, King Fuad, who did not understand how to connect with the public and only spoke Italian, King Farouk was able to craft and fashion his image through photography, selling a royal tale that only lived in people’s imagination. He always had an army of photographers to document his journeys in the countryside and around Egypt, in the hopes that it would reveal his strong connection with the ordinary Egyptian citizen. A royal tale cannot be complete without a royal romance, and that is what King Farouk also understood. His photograph of…
