Album with 174 Original Gelatin Silver Photographs, Taken during a Travel to Egypt and Showing Alexandria, Cairo, Great Pyramids of Giza and Great Sphinx, Temples in Philae, Esna, Luxor and Karnak, the Valley of the Kings, &c.; The Album is Titled: Egypte, 1912. Ca. 1912.

Oblong Folio album ca. 35,5x38,5 cm (14 x 15 ¼ in). 12 card stock leaves with tissue guards. With 174 mounted gelatin silver photos, from ca. 8,5x11 cm (3 ¼ x 4 ¼ in) to ca. 9x8,5 cm (3 ½ x 3 ¼ in). No captions. Period dark green pebbled sheep album. Front board with a gilt-lettered title and date, and a gilt-tooled decorative border; moire endpapers, all edges gilt. Binding slightly rubbed on extremities, corners slightly bumped, several tissue guards with tears or losses, several photos with mild silvering, but overall a very good album of strong interesting photos.

Attractive extensive collection of original gelatin silver photos illustrating a leisure trip to Egypt and up the Nile to Aswan, taken in 1912, most likely, by French tourists. The album opens with a portrait of the three travellers on board a steamer and three views of a port – most likely, Alexandria. There is also a photo of the Egyptian State Railways train, which apparently took the party to Cairo and then to Aswan. Over thirty images of Cairo and its environs show city streets (with passers-by, cart drivers, processions), a general panorama with the Citadel in the background, Tombs of the Caliphs in the Cairo Necropolis, travellers visiting Giza Zoo, resting in their hotel, looking at a traditional water wheel &c. Twenty photos illustrate their visit to the Great Pyramids of Giza, showing the Pyramids and the Sphinx, still partly covered in sand, local guides and their camels, the tourists climbing the Pyramids, posing in the mummification temple, &c.

The photos of the Giza Pyramids are followed by eighteen views of the Philae Island and Temple in Aswan, where the travellers apparently arrived by train. The photos show the temple grounds (the First Pylon and Colonnade, the Kiosk of Trajan, bas-relief of Isis, &c.), partly inundated after the completion of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902. The temple complex continued to experience regular floods until it was dismantled and moved to nearby Agilika Island in 1970, before the completion of the Aswan High Dam. An interesting photo portrays a local guide carrying one of the tourists across the flooded part of the temple. Several photos show the Aswan Low Dam and the visiting tourists.

On the way back, the travellers apparently went down the Nile on board “Cook & Son’s” steamer “Amenartas” (two photos show the steamer docked on a Nile bank). The photos include scenes of the party visiting the temples at Esna (the temple of Khnum), Luxor (the First Pylon, statues of Ramesses II, Colonnade of Amenhotep III, &c.), and Karnak (Gate and the First Pylon, the Hypostyle Hall, the Avenue of Sphinxes, &c.). There are also several images from the tour to the Valley of the Kings and two photos of the interior of ancient Egyptian tombs (one featuring the three travellers). The other images portray Egyptian farmers, desert nomads with camels, sellers at the site of Nile steamer landings, et al. The album closes with views of Mediterranean ports, taken on the way back to Europe. Overall, an attractive collection of lively original photos illustrating tourism in Egypt in the pre-WW1 years.