Dos vistas de Jerusalen firmadas en el negativo por Felix Bonfils.
Estas fotos estan sobre un papel azul lo que nos permite datarlas en la primera epoca de este fotografo, hacia 1867 epoca en la que se instalo en Beirut.
Bonfils francés de origen tuvo uno de los estudios fotográficos más importantes de Oriente Medio donde realizó numerosas vistas de sus ciudades, especialmente Jerusalen.
Se debe tener en cuenta que a finales del siglo XIX el conocido como Grand Tour o viaje que hacian las clases acaudaladas por todo el mundo tenía parada obligada en los Santos Lugares. Conocidos fotógrafos del tiempo se establecieron allí realizando álbumes para el recuerdo de estos primeros turistas.
Desde este punto su actividad se extendió a Grecia y todo el Oriente.
A su muerte su estudio mantuvo su actividad durante tiempo por su mujer y sus hijos.
- Se puede ver, con buenos textos, la exposición que se está celebrando en el Museo Getty
In Search of Biblical Lands: From Jerusalem to Jordan in Nineteenth-century Photography. Incluye fotos de Bonfils.
Ver Slideshow: See highlights of the exhibition
Y ya que estamos el Getty, veamos también
Véase, sobre Bonfils.
Félix Bonfils (1831–1885), a French printer turned photographer,
moved to Beruit in 1867 and opened a photographic studio. He
photographed the cities and sites of the eastern Mediterranean including
Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Greece, which he visited in
1868–1870 and again in the mid–1870s. His photographs of Greece were
included in the albums Architecture Antique: égypte, Grèce, Asie Mineure. Album de photographies (1872) and Souvenirs dOrient
(1878). Bonfils's wife Lydie, son Adrien, and daughter Félicie were all
involved in the family business, which also employed numerous assistant
photographers. Their firm became a very successful and prolific
purveyor of commercial travel views, with distrubutors in Alexandria,
Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Port Said, Paris, and Basel. Adrien took
over direction of photography expeditions in 1878, and ran the firm
after his father's death until the late 1890s. Lydie then managed the
firm, eventually selling it around 1909 to Abraham Guiragossian, who
continued using the Bonfils name into the 1930s.
Exhibition Archive Photographic Recollections: Ancient and Islamic
Monuments in the Near East 1850-1880
Some of the photographers featured, such as James Robertson, Felix Bonfils and
Wilhelm Hammerschmidt, settled and established studios in Istanbul, Beirut or
Cairo, to deal directly with the increasing numbers of travellers to the area.
Other photographers, like Francis Frith, Frank Mason Good, Giacomo Brogi and
Francis Bedford, undertook extensive and laborious expeditions to acquire their
negatives, which they sold to the home market from catalogues, or, in the case
of the Italian Brogi and the English Bedford, published in magnificent albums
.......L'atelier
Bonfils, fondé à Beyrouth en 1867, est l'archétype
de l'atelier familial prospère pendant des décennies (il
fut vendu en 1918 à Abraham Guiragossian, associé depuis
1909). Félix, avec sa femme, Lydie, et leurs enfants, Adrien et
Félicie, s'établit définitivement à Beyrouth
en 1867 pour y pratiquer la photographie.....
......Ces vues sont vendues une par une au choix
mais aussi rassemblées sous forme d'albums. Bonfils présente
d'abord en 1872 son Architecture antique, publiée par Ducher
à Paris. Mais il faut signaler tout particulièrement une
série de cinq volumes intitulés Souvenirs d'Orient ..
....Certaines photographies sont l'œuvre du fils
et d'autres d'assistants anonymes. Si l'ensemble du catalogue est intéressant,
en particulier pour la Palestine et la Syrie, abondamment représentées
alors que la production commerciale est en général plus
fournie pour l'Égypte et la Turquie, la multiplicité des
auteurs explique de sensibles fluctuations de qualité. ...........
THE LIGHT
OF ANCIENT ATHENS: A Photographic
Journey by Félix Bonfils, 1868–1875
..Viewed objectively,
the Bonfils photographs provide valuable information about the condition
of the ancient monuments and the urban landscape of Athens around 1870.
In addition, they illustrate the most important stations on a traveler’s
itinerary and the preferred points of view from which the monuments and
city were to be seen. Taken together, the photographs construct an idealized
city, more ancient than modern....
