649.a.18

Imprint: xxx

Brown buckram box measuring 515 x 405 mm, containing title page, introductory letterpress and descriptive list of photographs, with 155 prints. The original volume has been disbound and the prints re-mounted on loose card sheets, with the original letterpress captions pasted beneath. The photographs show architectural and archaeological views at Philae, Edfu, Luxor, Karnak, Thebes, Abydos and San el Hagar, with a selection of Museum pieces (from the Cairo Museum and the Louvre), photographed during the 1863-64 Egyptian expedition of Vicomte Emmanuel Charles Oliver Camille de Rougé (1811-1872). The French nobleman Vicomte Aymar Athanase de Banville (1837-1917) was a friend of de Rougé's son Jacques (who also accompanied the expedition) and a keen photographer. During the five months he remained in Egypt, de Banville took 220 negatives, a number of which were exhibited at the Société Francaise de Photographie in 1865. He was later awarded the Légion d'Honneur for his photographic work during the expedition. De Banville's 'Avertissement sur la méthode employée pour les photographies' notes 'the great photographic difficulties which all artists who have made the journey to Egypt and Nubia have met with, on account of the intensity of the light and the heat.' Although these factors cause great problems with the wet collodion process, de Banville states that he used it successfully throughout the expedition. In the light of eight months' work in extreme heat at Philae and Karnak, where he successfully recorded the hieroglyphic inscriptions, as well as statues composed of 'antiphotographique' stone (ie pink, green and red granite, which appeared very dark with the wet collodion process), 'the artist intending to make this journey will permit me to offer some advice which will greatly facilitate his work.' Among his suggestions are: the careful consideration of lighting, since 'in Egypt, a subject or view is never well lit for more than 10 or 12 minutes each day'; the use of a raking light for photographing hieroglyphic inscriptions; the use of pure chemicals, in particular, the use of collodion with an alcohol rather than an ether base; for developing, the use of iron sulphate, with a strong dose of acetic acid, in order to preserve the highlights: 'don't be afraid of adding some drops of nitric acid to preserve the clarity of the highlights'; and the varnishing of negatives, since the heat in the photographic dark tent will often otherwise cause the collodion to detach from the glass on drying.