Some of the earliest photographs of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine

Frith, Francis. Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine. Supplementary Volume.

€ 15,000.00

An important and early photobook on the Near East. During the years 1856-59, Frith (1822-98) made three visits to Egypt and the Holy Land; this selection of his photographs, from wet-collodion 9 x 7 negatives taken with an 8-by-10 inch camera, was published in 25 fascicles of 3 prints each, a work hailed as "one of the most renowned nineteenth-century photobooks" (The Photobook). Most of these images are dated 1857 either in the plate or the printed caption. They include a portrait of the artist in oriental costume and views of Jerusalem, Damascus, Gaza's New Town, and numerous views of Cairo, Giza, Sinai, and others. The preliminaries include title and contents, followed by the plates: each plate is accompanied by a full-page letterpress description, and is bound facing a blank leaf to protect the photographs.

"Francis Frith is undoubtedly one of the best-known photographers to work in the Near East. His trips to the Levant were a brilliant commercial success as well as an artistic one" (Perez 163).