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Parallèle des Edifices Anciens et Modernes du Continent Africain ... &c

Tremaux, Pierre

Paris. Hachette & Cie. c.1858
Complete copy of Trémaux's Parallèle des Edifices with eight original photographs.

Trémaux's work, an early and interesting use of photography in the recording of architectural remains and features, compares African builldings in Cairo, Tunis, ancient Carthage, Ethiopia, Sudan and elsewhere in Africa from ancient to modern times.

The original photographs in this copy (Trémaux in later issues replaced the photographs with lithographs so copies vary in the number of photographs present) are the following:

Plate 10: 'Vue d'une Cour à Tunis (de l'Hotel d'un Ministre du Bey)'; plate with additional lithograph on tissue after the original photograph tipped-in to same sheet.

Plate 28: 'Vue Latérale de la Mosquée Hassan et d'une Partie du Caire'.

Plate 58: 'Détail d'un Arc de Triomphe à Tripoli à Barbarie'; plate with additional lithograph on tissue after the original photograph tipped-in to same sheet.

Plate 61: 'Vue du Nymphée de Zaghouan formant la prise d'Eau des Aqueducs de Carthage'; plate with additional lithograph on tissue after the original photograph tipped-in to same sheet.

Plate 63: 'Vue de l'Aqueduc de Carthage, prise sur les Bords d'Ouad-el Méliana'; plate with additional lithograph on tissue after the original photograph tipped-in to same sheet.

Plate 65: 'Vue des Grands Citernes de Carthage (pris dans l'axe de la percée longitudinale et montrant sa construction en blocage'; plate with additional lithograph on tissue after the original photograph tipped-in to same sheet.

Plate 68: 'Vue de l'Amphithéatre d'El-Djem (Prise du Sud)'; plate with additional lithograph after the originalphotograph tipped-in to same sheet.

Plate 70: 'Vue Intérieure de l'Amphithéatre d'El-Djem'; plate with additional lithograph after the originalphotograph tipped-in to same sheet.

'Pierre Trémaux (1818 - ) worked on a project documenting the architectural history of Asia Minor and Africa, which was published in three parts over the course of several years (1847 - 1862). Trémaux employed daguerrotypes, his own sketches, and later, calotypes as the basis for the lithographic illustrations. Later fascicles of Voyage au Soudan Oriental et dans l'Afrique Septentrionale Exécutés en 1847 à 1854 were issued with mounted salted-paper prints which faded and required replacement by lithographic reproductions ... '. (Early Photography in the Middle East).

[The Truthful Lens 171].
Oblong folio. Printed title, lithograph frontispiece, leaf with 'Ordres des Planches et Notices de l'Atlas', folding 'Carte de l'Afrique Centrale et Orientale', 14 leaves with descriptive text for the plates printed recto only and 82 plates, numbered 1 - 82, of which 8 are original salt print photographs (seven of which have additional lithographs of the subjects printed on card or tissue and pasted over the photographs), 30 are engraved and the remaining 44 plates are lithographs (four colour, the remainder monochrome or tinted and 16 after photographs). Loose in modern green straight-grained morocco-backed cloth box, title gilt to upper board and spine.
#40464