Photographs of the Holy Land (Album of 24 Photochrom & Chromolithographic Prints of the Holy Land)
Jerusalem/Beirut: Boulos Meo/ T.R. Dumas et Fils/ Photochrom Zurich, [ca. 1890s]. Hardcover. Oblong quarto. 24 unpaginated heavy cardstock leaves. Black cloth spine. Thick olive wood boards, with debossed carved Jerusalem Cross on front cover. Also known as the Crusaders' Cross, it is a heraldic cross or Christian symbol consisting of a large Greek cross surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses, one in each quadrant. Black cloth spine. Beveled edges. Missing printed title leaf.
Album of 24 Photochrom & Chromolithographic prints, assembled and sold by the Boulos Meo Souvenir & Antique shop, historically located next to the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem*. Each image is accompanied with a handwritten caption in English below, and a gilt-stamped caption located near the bottom of the image. Most images are tissue-guarded . 8 of the prints are photogchroms produced by the pioneering inventors of the Photochrom process, Photochrom Zurich (Photoglob Zürich), each with the company's "P.Z." gilt-stamp in the images. The other 16 images were produced by T.R. Dumas et Fils, Beirut. These are cruder, more painterly images and seem to be chromolithographs based on original photographs, rather than photographic images themselves.
Images here show scenes from the areas of Jaffa (including the coast and the Bazaar) and Jerusalem (landscapes, exteriors and interiors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Hezekiah's Pool/Patricarch's Pool, exterior and interior of the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Garden of Gethsemane, The Mount of Olives, Jews at The Western Wall, and the Tomb of the Virgin Mary). Also included are images of Bethlehem (including the Church of the Nativity), Nazareth, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea.
Wood boards with some scratches and light wear. Sheet with handwritten contact information of previous owner pasted on interior front cover. Wear to corners of leaves, some light sporadic marginal stains. Binding with starting after the fifth plate. Images till mostly clean and vibrant, with one image having a prominent vertical crease down the center. Age toning, creasing and chipping to some tissue guards. Binding in very good, interior in good+ to very good-, prints in very good- to near fine condition overall. vg. Item #28767
*These albums were traditionally sold to tourists (usually Christian) in Jerusalem during the period, at the antique and souvenir shop of Boulos Meo. The albums normally contained a printed title plate, in one of a number of different languages, with the title "Photographs of the Holy Land". Some contained color prints (Dumas and Photochrom Zurich). By comparison to other similar albums, in terms of the binding and contents, we can establish that this is one of those, although the title plate is missing. Each one of these albums had similar contents, with some of the same images, but not exactly the identical collection of images/photographs.
Price: $1,250.00