Mecca | Ka'bat Allah Aleulya [The supreme Kaaba of Allah]. 1791

Mecca

Panoramic engraved view of Mecca, titled in Arabic 'Ka'bat Allah Aleulya' (The supreme Kaaba of Allah]. [Paris]: Charles-Nicolas & Joseph Varin, 1791

Large engraving (430 x 865mm.), titled in Arabic, short expert repaired tear at right edge, other minor nicks

A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF A RARE AND IMPRESSIVE PANORAMIC VIEW OF MECCA, THE LARGEST AND MOST DETAILED ENGRAVING PUBLISHED AT THE TIME. This print has been long considered unobtainable, as almost the entire edition was destroyed in a fire in Pera in 1791.

This large engraving of Mecca, shows pilgrims from as far as the mountain of Ararat arriving for the Hajj, and was commissioned by the diplomat Ignace de Mouradja d'Ohsson, who had earlier published a grand account of the Ottoman Empire, Tableau Général de l'Empire Othoman (Paris, 1787-90). This work included a double-page view of Mecca and environs engraved by Berthault after L.N. de Lespinasse. In 1791 Mouradja d'Ohsson commissioned the brothers Charles-Nicolas and Joseph Varin in Paris to produce a much larger version (the version present here), just before he returned to the Constantinople. He is reported to have sold copies in Constantinople to Muslim pilgrims, and travellers (cf. Hunglinger [1804], p.VI), but today very few copies appear to have survived.