(London: Madden & Malcolm, [1848]).

A WONDERFUL PLATE FROM THE FAMOUS ORIENTAL ALBUM, this being the portrait of Presse's host and close friend for some time during his first travels through Egypt. From 1839-43 it seems they resided together mainly in Luxor in some rooms at the rear of the vast temple at Karnak, and on the Theban west bank where the two companions lived in the tomb of Ahmose (tomb no. 83). They also enjoyed the hospitality of the Greek merchant and antiquities dealer Georgios Triantaphyllos, known as Wardi, who owned a house in the vicinity of the well-known tomb of Nakln. The plate shows him in garb befitting an Arab Sheikh, smoking from a hookah while reclining on luxurious Oriental carpet laid upon the desert sand, behind him a servant tends to three camels.
Émile Prisse d'Avennes was a leading French archaeologist, egyptologist, artist, architect and writer. An artist of consummate skill, French to the bone, he was of British blood. He embraced Islam and took the name Edris-Effendi. By nature contentious, he alienated colleagues, yet succored the sick and the poor. Of the hundreds of 19th-century Orientalists - those Western artists, scholars and writers who gravitated to the Islamic world following Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 -few possessed so prodigious an intellect, such a trove of talents, so insatiable a curiosity or so passionate a commitment to record the historical and artistic patrimony of Egypt and Islam. He succeeded brilliantly, wherever his work took him, the insatiably curious young man eagerly tramped through ruins, drew maps and plans, sketched and wrote descriptive accounts of both ancient cities and modern villages. Item #26806

A fine handcoloured lithograph from the first folio edition. An especially famous plate of ORIENTAL ALBUM, after the drawings by E. Prisse d Avennes done on stone by Bureau and printed by Lemercier in Paris and coloured by hand. A 14 by 11 inch captioned image, on a single folio sheet measuring 21.5 by 14.25 inches, now protected in a 26 by 19 inch gray boards glazed with mylar. A beautifully preserved folio plate, the colours vivid and strong, all very clean and fresh.