Bonfils
No. 1
Alexandrie - Place des Consuls /
Alexandrie - Consuls' Palace /
Alexandrie - Der Consulenplatz
|
Backside
of
Alexandrie - Place des Consuls /
Alexandrie - Consuls' Palace /
Alexandrie - Der Consulenplatz
|
This page depicts a set of early large
format Albumin prints of Egypt by Felix
Bonfils. The photographs are all part
of the series
"VUES
DE TOUT L' ORIENT".
These large format albumen prints measure,
38.8 cm x 28.6 cm (15 1/4" x 11 1/4"
inch.)
All photographs are mounted on their original
decorative card-board, 62.5cm x 48,5 cm
(25" x 18 3/4") with letterpress
caption
"Vues de Tout
l'Orient par Bonfils Phot. A Alais (Gard)"
AlaisTyp. Lith. A. Brugueirolle &
Cie"
The image on top of this page , 'Alexandrie
- Consuls' Palace',
clearly shows in the negative
No. 1
On the backsides of all boards there is
a detailed description in French, English
& German, describing the depicted
subjects.
Some images depicted
here show a detail or the description
on the backside on mouse-over
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Bonfils
No. 22
Temple
de Chafra. Sphinx & Pyramide de
Khéops /
Temple of Chaffra, Sphynx and Pyramid
of Cheops
Pyramid Des Cheops, Sphinx und Tempel
des Cafra
|
Backside
of
Temple
de Chafra. Sphinx & Pyramide de Khéops
/
Temple of Chaffra, Sphynx and Pyramid
of Cheops
Pyramid Des Cheops, Sphinx und Tempel
des Cafra |
The illustrated series is part of a larger
set, partly in the collection of 'Visual
Media' and 'The
Fogg Art Museum', Fine Arts
Library
Harvard University. Aga Khan Program for
Islamic Architecture, Cataloguer for Islamic
Art, Jeffrey B. Spurr.
Further information on Bonfils' photographs
can be found in "The
image of the East: nineteenth-century
Near Eastern photographs by Bonfils"
GAVIN, CARNEY E.S. From the collections
of the Harvard Semitic Museum. Compiled
and edited by Ingeborg Endter O’Reilly.
This size of views from the Orient by
F. Bonfils seems to be very unusual. At
the end of the series seen on this page,
I reproduce an e-mail send to a photohistory
mailing group by Bill
Becker, director of the American
Museum of Photography. for
further reference
|
Bonfils
No. 24
Les
trois Pyramides /
The three Pyramids /
Ansicht Der Drei Kleinen Pyramiden
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 19
Arbre
de la Vierge a Mataryèh /
The
Virgin's tree at Mataryeh Héliopolis
/
Der
Baum der jungfrau in Matarieh
|
Reference by Ken Jacobson
"Bonfils
opened his studio in Beirut in 1867. The
earliest prints, late 1860's, have a black
signature, "F. Bonfils" or "Bonfils".
I have a copy of the 1876 Bonfils catalogue
described by Bill Becker (below)
and it indicates which images are available
in which format. The largest mounted images
of Bonfils often contained the stamp "Vues
de Tout L'Orient". I can confirm
these are Bonfils images. The 30 x 40
cm images are not from the earliest series
as Bonfils did not initially have a camera
that large. The 30 x 40 cm prints negatives
appear to have been taken in the 1870's
and sometimes have a small white printed
signature in the negative".
Ken
Jacobson
|
Bonfils
No. 23
Le
Sphynx /
The Sphynx /
Die Sphinx
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 9
Citadelle
du Caire /
Citadel of Cairo /
Die Citadelle von Kairo
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 15
Le
Caire, pris de la Citadelle /
Cairo taken from the Citadel /
Kairo, Von Der Citadelle Ausgesehen
|
|
|
Bonfils
No. 18
Obélisque
d' Héliopolis à Mataryèh
/ Obelisk
of Heliopolis at Mataryeh
Obelisk Von Heliopolis Mataryèh
|
| |
Bonfils
No. ?
Alexandrie
- Obélisque ou Aiguilles de Cléopatre
/ Alexandria
- Obelisks or Cleopatra's needles
Alexandrie - Obelisk oder Nadel Der
Kleopatra
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 2
Alexandrie
- Colonne Pompée /
Alexandria - Pompey's Column
Alexandria - Die Pompejus Saule
|
| |
Bonfils
No. ?
Montagne
des Tombeaux des Rois ou de Biban-El-Molouk
/ Rock-cut
Sepulchres of the Kings
Theben - Die Koningsgraber Im Gebirg
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 58
Vallée
des tombeaux - Bab-El-Molouk Thèbes
/
Valley
of Tombs - Bab-El-Molouk Thebe
Das Græberthal - Bab-El-Molouk
Bab-El-Molok
|
|
Bonfils
No. 10
Tombeaux
des Khalifes - El-Achraf /
Tombs of the Caliphs - El-Ashraf
Graeber Der Kalifen - El-Aschraf
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 20
Barrage
du Nil près du Caire /
Dam of the Nile near Cairo /
Nilwehr Bei Kairo Barrage du Nil
|
| |
Bonfils
No. 26
Boat used by Bonfils
to travel the Nile with his photo equipment
Dahabieh
de Voyageurs sur le Nil /
Dahabieh or travellers' Boat on the
Nile
Dahabiek Auf dem Nil Dahabieh du prince
Arthur sur le nil
|
Reference by Bill
Becker:
"Some
years ago, Carney E. S. Gavin was kind
enough to send me his articles on the
Bonfils family of photographers. His research
provides some insight into the very unusual
photographs presented by Thomas
Weynants.
I
first reviewed the handlist of the exhibition
"Remembrances
of the Near East: The Photographs of Bonfils,
1867-1907" shown at Eastman
House in 1980. A few of the 187 listed
images are cartes de visite, but the rest
are all approximately 22 x 28 cm.
From
Dr. Gavin's "Bonfils and the Early
Photography of the Near East" (Harvard
Library Bulletin, vol. XXVI, Number 4,
October 1978) we learn that there is an
1876 catalogue of Bonfils images, issued
by the studio and published in Alais in
1876, in the collection of the Harvard
Library. This catalogue "lists for
sale 99 stereoscopic costume studies,
33 (18 x 24 cm.) costume study prints,
and some 550 photographs of sites in Egypt,
Palestine, Syria, Syria Minor, and Greece,
available in stereoscope or as prints
in three formats (30 x 40, 24 x 30, 18
x 24 cm.)"
It
is not clear to me whether the catalogue
actually indicates that every one of the
550 subjects were available in all four
formats. Other contemporaneous sales lists,
for example those of Edouard-Denis Baldus
of Paris and James Anderson of Rome, show
certain subjects were available in both
large and small formats, but many others
were only available in one format. As
Dr. Gavin notes elsewhere in his writings
on Bonfils, it was standard practice for
photographers visiting remote locations
to take several cameras and to make images
in multiple formats at each scene.
I
can not recall ever seeing a Bonfils image
as large as 11-1/4 x 15-1/4 inches --
the print size of the 30 x 40 format photographs
discovered by Thomas
Weynants. My feeling is that
these are rare, and judging from the appearance
of them on Thomas's website, I would venture
to say they are quite early-- almost certainly
from the 1860s. (Dr. Gavin says family
tradition dates Bonfils' first visit to
the Near East to 1860, when he accompanied
the French expeditionary force; the accepted
date of the founding of "Maison Bonfils"
in Beirut is 1867.)
By
1871, Bonfils boasted of having produced
15,000 prints and 9,000 stereoscopic cards.
If all of his subjects were available
in the large 30 x 40 cm format, why have
so few survived?"
Bill
Becker
American
Museum of Photography
|
| |
The
last image on this page, for comparison,
depicts a photograph of the Sphynx by
Pascal Sebah
'The
Sphynx' by Pascal
Sebah |