Large 8vo. 328 pp., [should be 228], half-title, 16 hand coloured drawings including a frontispiece, contemporary quarter calf with marbled boards & endpapers, slightly rubbed round edges, gilt title on decorated spine, ink presentation note on front fly leaf, scattered foxing, otherwise copy in very good condition, Challamel Editeur, Paris, first edition, [1843].

Synopsis

Frederic Goupil Fesquet, an artist who travelled with the company of another painter Horace Vernet to Egypt and Syria taking the first daguerreotypes in the area. Only two months after the announcement in Paris 19 August 1839 about the discovery of Photography, the first photographs in Egypt and Syria were taken by Frederic Goupil Fesquet. This work is an account of that famous journey which became a landmark in the history of photography in Egypt and Syria.
A later edition appeared in Brussels 1844. According to Cataract the work appeared in 20 issues in a general wrapper in white paper with an ornament design. Goupil-Fesquet produced many books on design and ornaments, and manuals of painting. In this work he discusses the oriental decorative arts. Bibliographic References: Blackmer 718; Cataract III, p. 594; Weber I 309 (giving ‘[1840]’ as the date of publication; Not in Hilmy; Colas 1275.