Prisse dedicated “Oriental Album” to his friend George Lloyd, as exemplified by this frontispiece. (Images reprinted from book) EGYPT has been much in the news lately, and the current interest in the country extends beyond the political and economic spheres as people seek to learn more about Egypt's culture and history. A recently-published book on Cairo's Islamic monuments is likely to appeal to those keen to acquaint themselves with Egypt's cultural legacy. The book, “Emile Prisse d'Avennes: Arab Art”, is published by the renowned Cologne-based German art book publisher Taschen. It presents the achievements of the French Orientalist, author and artist Emile Prisse d'Avennes (1807-1879) who recorded with masterful draftsmanship, Egypt's Islamic architecture and art, and the Egyptians' way of life. The magnificent volume brings together all the plates that Prisse prepared for two of his key works: “Arab Art as Featured in the Monuments of Cairo from the 7th to the late 18th century”, and the shorter “Oriental Album: Characters, Costumes and Modes of Life, the Valley of the Nile”. The book is a rich compendium of Cairo's Islamic architecture and art. It is a weighty large-format tome measuring 31.4 by 44.2 centimeters, with 408 pages, and has a trilingual text in English, German and French. The large plates make a stunning impact. They convey the grand dimensions of mosques and other buildings, while also being full of fine detail. Color plates display the vibrant hues and intricate designs of ceramics, mosaics and textiles; others show manuscripts and copies of the Holy Qur'an. Prisse often includes human figures in his architectural drawings, both to give a sense of scale and to show everyday activities. The book benefits from an introductory essay by two leading Islamic art scholars, Professors Sheila S. Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom. This husband and wife team share both the Norma Jean Calderwood University Professorship of Islamic and Asian Art at Boston College, and the Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. Prisse continued a tradition that started with publication of “Description de l'Egypte”, the scientific record of Napoleon's 1798-1801 expedition to Egypt. His interest in Egypt was part of a wider wave of “Egyptomania” spurred by the Napoleonic expedition and by improved travel and communications. Prisse was born in 1807 in Avesnes-sur-Helpe, northern France. He embarked on his travel adventures at a young age, joining in the Greek war of independence in 1825 and then becoming briefly secretary to the governor general of the Indies. He passed through Palestine before becoming a civil engineer and hydrographer in the service of Mohammad Ali Pasha, the Albanian solider who is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt. Prisse was a convert to Islam, and after resigning his official position in 1836 he began to explore Egypt dressed as an Arab, adopting the name Edriss Effendi. He moved to Luxor in 1839 so as to be closer to the ruins of Karnak at ancient Thebes, remaining there until 1843. At Thebes he excavated with a young Welsh botanist, George Lloyd, who asked him to make a series of drawings for an album depicting life along the River Nile. At the end of 1843, Lloyd died in a shooting accident. When “Oriental Album: Characters, Costumes and Modes of Life, in the Valley of the Nile” was published in London in 1848, Prisse dedicated it to his late friend, who is portrayed wearing Arab dress in a frontispiece to the book. “Oriental Album” contains 30 chromolithographs interspersed with engravings and commentary by the noted 19th-century Orientalist and author James Augustus St. John. The illustrations are based on drawings made by Prisse d'Avennes and transferred to stone by various artists. The illustrations show figures posed against picturesque backdrops, observed during an imaginary journey from Alexandria and Cairo to Nubia and Abyssinia, with a detour to the Red Sea and the Arabian province of Nejd. One chromolithograph is of a horse from Nejd, with the province described as “the original country of the horse, since he is there found in the greatest perfection”. Blair and Bloom write: “This appears to be a timeless magical world divorced from the realities of contemporary Egypt, where poverty and disease coincided with industrial development.” Under the Second French Empire, Prisse “led a somewhat precarious existence as disappointment followed disappointment.” He failed to be appointed to a series of significant posts, including that of curator of Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre and French ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Nor did plans to go on a mission to buy Arabian horses in central Nejd come to anything. In June 1858, he moved to Egypt as a member of a French mission to undertake scientific, commercial and cultural activities. He took 24-year-old Dutch artist, Willem de Famars Testas, and young Parisian photographer A. Jarrot with him on the two-year mission. One year was spent in Cairo and the other in travels in Upper Egypt, Nubia and Arabia. The mission amassed a wealth of sketches, watercolors, rubbings and photographs. After returning to France in 1860 Prisse spent the rest of his life working on his various major publications. “Arab Art as Featured in the Monuments of Cairo” was published in three volumes from 1869 to 1877, with 200 large chromolithographic plates and engravings. There were also 300 pages of text, which are today less known than the colored plates. The color plates were based both on Prisse's meticulous observations and on the new medium of photography. The plates are arranged in sections including architecture; architectural ornamentation and decoration; revetments and paving; ceilings; woodwork; doors; ceramics; windows and glassware; textiles and carpets; arms and armor; civil and religious furnishing; and manuscripts and copies of the Holy Qur'an. In the new Taschen book, some of the plates are spread over two pages, such as the illustration of the Al-Azhar Mosque and courtyard. The book also has two fold-outs. One is of the 17th century house of Hosni Ahmad Al-Bordayni. The other shows an enameled glass lamp from the 14th century Mosque of Sultan Barquq, which also illustrates the cover of the book. As Blair and Bloom note, Prisse had an “uneasy place” in the study of the Islamic architecture of Egypt. This was partly due to negative comments from certain other Orientalists — and yet “his books remain in print while theirs do not.”
