74/559*g.21

Imprint: Le Caire. Mourès et Cie, Imprimeurs-Éditeurs. 1871.

Quarter-leather and red buckram folio volume measuring 500 x 370 mm, with title stamped in gilt on upper board, containing 42 prints (numbered 1-40, but with two prints at plates 19 and 33), mounted one to a page (verso only) on card mounts, with accompanying letterpress descriptions by Auguste Mariette. The publication date is given as 1871 on the titlepage and 1872 on the upper board. The views are of objects (mainly arranged in groups) in the collections of the Bulaq Museum in Cairo, established by the French Egyptologist and first Director of Egyptian Monuments Francois Auguste Ferdinand Mariette (1821-1881). Print titles in the volume are limited to the section in which they appear ('Panthéon,' 'Monuments funéraires,' etc) and titles for the print listing in this catalogue have been composed from the descriptives notes that accompany each print. In his brief introduction to the work, dated 1 November 1871, Mariette writes that Délié and Béchard approached the museum for permission to photograph the collections, a request enthusiastically accepted by Mariette, who agreed to co-operate in the selection of the most suitable items to be photographed: 'Monsieurs Délié and Béchard followed, in the classification and arrangement of their photographs, the order used in the summary list on sale in the museum. Three plates showing the exterior and interior of the museum introduce the album. These are followed by monuments, divided into religious, funerary, civil, historical and Greek and Roman pieces. Délié and Béchard's photographic album thus serves as an illustrated catalogue of the museum.' Mariette further praises their work in the following terms: 'The remarkable execution of the plates allows us to recommend Délié and Béchard's album to everyone. Travellers will take away a souvenir of their visit to the Bulaq Museum. Savants will find hieroglyphic texts reproduced with a clarity recalling the original objects. And finally, artists will find in no othe work of Eygyptology a better illustration of the difficult problems of Egyptian art history than in the beautiful prints produced by the cameras of Délié and Béchard.'