Lot Details
Lot 215
ZANGAKI, ARNOUX and others An album of approximately sixty albumen prints collected during a tour of Egypt in 1892, mounted loose in an album;
together with two framed, seven shrink-wrapped and three matted albumen prints, apparently originally accompanying the album and subsequently removed. Leather over boards (covers detached), with the prints inserted into corner slits. Most 8 1/2 x 11 inches (215 x 280 mm) or the reverse; includes images of the Suez canal, Cairo, the Sphinx, the Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Luxor etc. A few images with edge defects, etc., but in general in very attractive condition, most with good tones, never mounted. The album essentially disbound.
According to a 1932 pencil note, this was prepared by Ernest F. Smith on an 1892 trip to Egypt, and was later to presented by his sister to a friend of her brother as a memento, presumably upon his death. Many of the photographs are attributable by identifications in the plate to some of the most eminent photographers of Egyptian views, including the Zangaki brothers, Hippolyte Arnoux (who worked with the Zangakis), and a few others. Most of these were taken earlier than Smith's trip by at least two decades. These images were purchasable from printsellers in Cairo and elsewhere, and were often collected by those who made the journey to the Middle East and Egypt. In all, an exceptionally interesting collection, in a good state of preservation.
C
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