Folio. 214 pp., French & Arabic text, 20 collotype plates showing carved tombstones, b/w photograph tipped-in on upper cover, original hard boards, rubbed round edges, hinges weak, otherwise copy clean and in very good condition, Tomme Xeme; Musee National de L’Art Arabe, Imprimerie de la Bibliotheque Egyptienne, Cairo, first edition, 1942.

Synopsis

Gaston Wiet (1887-1971), was a French orientalist. He graduated from the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, and with a law degree, was boarder at the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale of Cairo in 1909–1911. As an assistant professor in Lyon, where he taught Arabic and Turkish, then a professor in Cairo, he was drafted in 1914, assigned to the Armée d’Orient as a second lieutenant and by the end of the war, he was a captain, decorated by the Serbian government. In 1919, he resumed his teaching activities in Lyon and Paris. In 1926 he was appointed director of the Museum of Islamic Art, a position he held until 1951. He wrote 14 of the 35 volumes of the catalog of the museum, of which he did much to enrich the collections, particularly in the areas of items of furniture and epigraphy. In 1940, Wiet became in Cairo, one of the most ardent supporters of Free France and Général de Gaulle. On his return to France in 1951, Wiet was appointed professor at the Collège de France (chair of Arabic language and literature), a position he held until 1959. In 1957, he was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.