Parallèles des Édifices anciens et modernes du Continent Africain:

with calotype plates

Rare photographs by Trémaux, which 'rank among the earliest endeavours to record indigenous people by photography... Trémaux complained, typically that the inhabitants of Islamic countries were not usually comfortable having their photographs taken. He persisted, however, revealing himself as one of the few early French photographers as interested in recording the people of a region as he was with its archaeological ruins' (Jacobson). Trémaux (1818-1895) travelled to Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Asia Minor in the late 1840s and began taking photographs around 1853-4, however the photographs were technically uneven, obliging him to substitute them with lithographs, however the rare images that survive have ensured the photographer's lasting reputation. The photographs are numbers 10, 28, 61, 63, 65, and 70 each (except plate 28) with lithograph duplicate.

Atlas volume only; issued originally as part of the author's Voyage au Soudan oriental... (Paris: Borrani et Droz, 1852-1858).

Landscape folio (35 x 55 cm), [16] ff., colour lithographic title, 6 calotypes, 76 lithograph plates (some in colour) with 5 lithographic duplicates on tissue tipped in as guards for calotypes, plate 68 on a different paper, trimmed and tipped in, folded map. Title and subsequent leaf with soft crease and dust-soiled, letterpress leaves with light foxing and occasional soft crease, map with short tear, modern blue half morocco gilt, marbled sides, a very good copy.

Goldschmidt and Naef, The Truthful Lens (NY, 1980), no.171; Perez, N., Focus East: Early Photography in the Near East 1839-1885 (NY, 1988), pp.227-228; Jacobson, K. Odalisques & Arabesques; Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 (London, 2007) Brunet V, 935.