Sotheby's auction of Fine Travel and Plate Books, A private collection includes a copy of Francis Frith's Egypt, Sinai, and Jerusalem: a series of twenty photographic views. London, [c.1858]. The copy is estimated at £100,000-150,000. The catalogue will be available online at sothebys.com shortly.
The lot description reads:
57
Frith, Francis. Egypt, Sinai, and Jerusalem: a series of twenty
photographic views... with descriptions by Mrs Poole and Reginald
Stuart Poole. London: James S. Virtue, [c.1858]
Large folio (738 x 530mm.), 20 mounted albumen prints (485 x
390mm., or the reverse), several signed and dated 1858 in the
negative, contemporary dark green half morocco, flat spine, gilt
edges, upper cover lettered in gilt, some scattered spotting, binding
slightly rubbed, some restoration to spine and corners
“The largest book with the biggest, unenlarged prints ever
published.” (Gernsheim). “Few publications in the history of
photography are its equal in either presentation or ambition. The
twenty photographs feature Egyptian subjects, with just a single
view of Jerusalem. Frith’s views of the Pyramids, in particular, are
ground breaking and became the works for which he is now best
known. The photographs are accompanied by texts written by
Sophia Poole and Reginald Stuart Poole (a mother-and-son team),
recognised writers on Egyptian history and customs” (Imagining
Paradise).
References: Gernsheim, Incunabula (London, 1984) 130; Röhricht
p.506; Hilmy I, p.249; Jacobson, K., Odalisques & Arabesques:
Orientalist Photography 1839-1925 (London, 2007, pp.88-89, 232-234);
Parr and Badger, The Photobook (London, 2007, vol.1, p.28); Foster,
Heiting and Stuhlman, Imagining Paradise (NY, 2007, p.63)
£ 100,000-150,000 € 124,000-186,000
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