Félix Bonfils (1831-1885)

SOUVENIRS D'ORIENT, 1877 RARE FIRST EDITION. Album pittoresque des sites, villes et ruines les plus remarquables de la Terre Sainte. Albumen prints (50), each measuring 175 x 230mm (or the reverse), each mounted recto on lithographed card mounts, each with an accompanying leaf of descriptive text in French, English and German, with a hand-coloured lithographed map of Palestine by H. Selves bound at the front. Housed in an oblong folio measuring 342 x 445mm, publisher's green roan-backed green cloth boards, upper cover titled and decorated in gilt, with gilt edges.

From the Preface: "The collection of photographs of the principal places of the East, undertaken by Mr F. Bonfils, and carried out with an unparalleled perseverance, must be considered, in a pictorial, artistic and scientific point of view as the greatest work of the present day ... the amateur as well as the connoisseur, will derive both pleasure and profit in studying the wonderful collection of photographs contained in this unrivalled publication."

Full image set: https://we.tl/t-3JSEblh8uN