“THE FIRST MUSEUM FOR ANTIQUITIES IN THE NEAR EAST”: RARE LARGE FOLIO ALBUM DU MUSÉE DE BOULAQ, 1872, AUTHORED BY THE FATHER OF EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY, WITH 40 LARGE VINTAGE CARBON PRINTS OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES

(BÉCHARD, Emile and DÉLIÉ, Hippolyte) MARIETTE-BEY, Auguste. Album du Musée de Boulaq Comprenant Quarante Planches. Le Caire: Mourès & Cie, 1872. Large folio (14 by 20 inches), original publisher's embossed pebbled brown cloth gilt rebacked in gilt-lettered brown morocco and recornered, all edges gilt.

First edition of this monumental folio of 40 splendid exhibition-size carbon prints of newly excavated funerary artifacts and magisterial statues of Egyptian gods such as Osiris, Isis and Ra, displayed in Egypt’s Musée de Boulaq, founded by the father of Egyptian archaeology Auguste Mariette, with each richly toned vintage print by famed photographers Béchard and Délié made from glass negatives and mounted on heavy card stock, text by Mariette.

This impressive large folio Album du Musée Boulacq evokes a resonant vision of Egypt's magisterial heritage in 40 vintage exhibition-size carbon prints of magnificent statuary, funerary artifacts and massive sarcophagi from Egypt's ancient dynasties. These impressive prints, each mounted on heavy card stock, display the artistry of highly respected photographers Emile Béchard and Hippolyte Délié, and "possess the highest technical qualities. Views of Egypt by Béchard, presented at the Universal Exposition of 1878 in Paris, won him a gold medal" (trans. from Pouillon, Dictionnaire, 69). Béchard and Délié's splendid images, taken in the peerless light of Egypt, are among the first photographs ever made of these newly discovered statues and artifacts. The Album was authored by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, father of Egyptian archaeology, whose earlier exploration of Saqqara revealed "an ancient avenue of sphinxes. He followed it to the Serapeum, the huge subterranean gallery where the sacred Apis bulls were buried, which he excavated." Mariette famously pioneered a movement to protect Egypt's antiquities and monuments, and "in 1858, with the help of Egypt's rulers, Sa'id Pasha and Isma'il Pasha, Mariette founded (at Bulak in Cairo) the first museum for antiquities in the Near East" (Bard & Shubert, Encyclopedia, 469). The Bulak Museum was ultimately relocated to Kasr-en-Nil, Cairo and renamed the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, heralded as "the most valuable collection of the kind" (Baedeker, Egypt, 78). This volume is divided into four major sections: Vues Pittoresques (three plates), Panthéon (seven plates), Monuments Funéraires (seven plates), Monuments Civils (eight plates), Monuments Historiques (twelve plates) and Monuments Grecs et Romains (three plates). Featured are priceless statues of Osis, Isis, Harpocrates, Anubis, Phtah, Chnouphis, Chephren, Thouëris, Ra and other gods, along with engraved tablets, amulets, large sarcophagi, funerary scarabs and vases, jewels, weaponry and armor, and much more. Text in French. Jacobson, 212. Owner signature to title page. Bookplate, inkstamps, embossed stamp (to title page) of Forbes Library.

Plates and text generally fresh with light scattered foxing, minor edge-wear to several gilt-edged leaves without affecting plates or text, faint rubbing to original publisher's cloth. An exceedingly rare and desirably folio in extremely good condition.