Photograph of a marble statue of the head of Perseus by Francis Bedford.
After accompanying the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, on his 1862 tour of the Middle East Bedford undertook few new projects. One involved photographing recently acquired works of art at the British Museum. The sculptures had been excavated at Cyrene, on the coast of Libya, and brought back to the museum in 1861. Sixteen of Bedford's photographs were included in a publication about the works.