[BONFILS, Félix, photographer, and others.] Palestine [cover title]. Alès and Beirut: Bonfils & Cie. 1880s.
Folio (34 by 25 cm). Publisher's original pictorial cloth portfolio with bevelled edges, lettered in gilt to upper cover; 30 photographs in sepia (each c. 17 by 12 cm) mounted within decorative orange-brown borders on strong card, captions in English and suitable Biblical passages to lower margins; wear to portfolio, inner flaps and sides with restorations, one mount with chipped corner, minimal embrowning to margins of card (much less than usually encountered), very bright and with no fading at all to the photographs.
First edition of this compilation which is often incomplete. Published as a souvenir of Palestine, these photographs are reproduced from the work of the most prolific photographic establishment of the Middle East, Maison Bonfils, a family enterprise based in Beirut. Bonfils had been trained by Niépce, and his wife Lydie worked in the company as photographer as well.
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