Over one hundred photographs of Jerusalem in the 1880s

Bonfils, Felix / Zangaki / American Colony, et al. [Photograph album - Jerusalem].

[Palestine, ca. 1880s].

Oblong folio (425 x 330 mm). 102 albumen photographs (220 x 275 mm) mounted on card. Contemporary green pebbled cloth ruled in blind.

 9.500,00

A large collection of portraits and views of Jerusalem and surroundings, most signed or captioned in-plate by Felix Bonfils (46), the American Colony studio (16), Zangaki (7), Dumas, and P. Sebah. Striking scenes include sea-bathers in the Dead Sea, the market at Jaffa overflowing with melons, the Greek Orthodox ceremony of the washing of the feet in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, several scenes of the interior of the same church, the Tombs of the Kings, the convent of Mar Sabba clinging to a cliffside, the Christmas Day pilgrimage in Bethlehem, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, street scenes of Jerusalem populated by passersby in Ottoman and European dress, men and camels resting along the banks of the Jordan or aiming their rifles across the river for the camera, the "Mosque of Omar" (Dome of the Rock, Qubbat as-Sakhra) and the interior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (also known as the Qibli Mosque). The collection also includes portraits, largely of locals: two portraits of women from Nazareth, all in European style dresses under long headscarves, two wearing tall pattens to keep their feet from the street mud; father and son street vendors in Ottoman dress, a young woman from Bethlehem in an elaborately embroidered jacket, and a bearded man captioned "Cheik de Village".

Some fading and occasional wear to photographs, binding skilfully rebacked and repaired. An interesting and wide-ranging collection documenting Jerusalem from the individual to the historical scale just prior to the turn of the century.

Art.-Nr.: BN#60555 Schlagwörter: , , ,