Bonfils. Remembrances of the Near East: The Photographs of Bonfils, 1867-1907.

International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House and the Harvard Semitic Museum, 1980. Issued in conjuction with traveling exhibition, 1980-1981. Wraps, 24 pages, 14 illustrations, list of 187 items on exhibit, essay by Robert A. Sobieszek and Carney E.S. Gavin. Very good with light crimps and shadow of address label on back cover.

Note: April 9, 1885, was a sad day: the death in Alès, France, of Felix Bonfils, founder of one of the most prolific photography establishments in the Orient in the 19th century.  Born March 8, 1831, at Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, France, he may have learned photography from Abel Niépce de Saint-Victor before moving to Beirut in 1867.  Already by 1871, he had 15,000 prints in stock from 590 glass negatives, including 9,000 stereoscopic photographs. Most of the Bonfils negatives, some of which were by his wife Lydie and later ones by his son Adrien, were made in Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, Egypt, and Syria, and include both views and costume studies.  After Bonfils’ death in Alès, where he had a second studio, his wife and son continued the Bonfils firm until Lydie’s death in 1918, when their partner Abraham Guiragossian assumed ownership. He kept the Bonfils name on the firm until at least 1932.