Karnak. Ruins de la salle hypostyle, vue de l'intérieur

After 1867. Acceptable. Silver albumen photograph on paper. 275 x 215 mm. Signed and titled in plate. Toned to sepia. Edges a bit chipped in places. Crease across lower right portion of image.

Number 149 in the photographer's "Souvenirs d'Orient" series. Felix Bonfils (1831-1885) was an active and prolific pioneer of photography in the Middle East, yet details of his life and work remain obscure. "All we know of Bonfils", said photographic historian Beaumont Newhall, "is that he was a genius." Recent information gathered under the direction of Harvard Semitic Museum curator Carney Gavin shows that Bonfils, a French bookbinder and printer, moved to Beirut with his family in the 1860s. His training in photogravure in France prepared him for his career as photographer in the Middle East, where, together with his wife and son, he enterprisingly produced souvenir photos and books for European travelers. The books were all hand-made, each photograph printed from the original glass negative and pasted into place. This print of a single photograph, never mounted, must have been made for inclusion in a bound volume that never reached completion.