Aymard de Banville | Album photographique de la mission remplie en Égypte..., Paris, 1865, an exceptionally rare work from the earliest days of travel photography

Aymard de Banville

Album photographique de la mission remplie en Égypte par le vte Emmanuel de Rougé, accompagné de M. le vte de Banville et de M. Jacques de Rougé, attachés à la mission, 1863-1864. Paris: Samson, 1865

Folio (502 x 395 mm). Title-page, nine text leaves including the Avertissement, 155 albumen prints (various sizes and orientations, approximately 41 x 178 mm to 195 x 251 mm), mounted on card (some out of order), printed captions mounted below images, tissue guards; some prints with toning to sky or foxing, heaviest to final prints, but generally very clean, some mounts foxed, a few tears to tissue guards, one or two detached, rippling to final few mounts. Brown three-quarter pebble-grained morocco and brown cloth covered boards, spine with raised bands in six compartments, second and fourth gilt-lettered; light rubbing to extremities.

AN EXCEPTIONALLY RARE WORK FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS OF TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY.

Emmanuel Rougé (1811-1864), Honorary Curator of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre and Professor of Egyptian Archaeology at the Collège de France, was officially commissioned to decipher hieroglyphic texts in Egypt between October 1863 and June 1864. He was accompanied by his son Jacques, as well as the amateur photographer (and gentleman farmer) Viscount Amyard de Banville (1837-1917).

By pioneering the use of wet collodion glass plate negatives, the expedition captured Egyptian monuments with a hitherto unprecedented degree of sharpness. de Banville's work received strong recognition in its day. The photographer was duly awarded the Légion d'Honneur and examples of the photographs were included in the Société Française de Photographie exhibition of 1865.

LITERATURE:

Nissan Perez, Focus East (Jerusalem, 1988), p. 128

PROVENANCE:

Honoré d'Albert, duc de Luynes (1802–1867), art collector, archaeologist, and scientist; by descent to the present owner.

The Duc de Luynes played an important role in the photography, especially in terms of the chemistry involved. As a member of the Société Française de Photographie, he established a prize for the photographer who succeeded in reproducing photographic images using ink mixed with carbon, as well as a secondary award concerning the printing and preservation of positive prints.

As an archaeologist, he took an interest in the relationship between the Phoenicians and Egypt—and the traces they left there—a topic revisited by the Viscount de Rougé in light of discoveries made along the banks of the Nile.

He travelled to Egypt himself, though he was soon forced to cut short his trip due to ill health. He also contributed to the funding of Mariette’s excavations around the Great Sphinx.