Search

Collection consists of two large cloth-bound photograph albums dating from circa 1881, housing 56 large albumen photographs taken by noted 19th century French photographer Félix Bonfils, who owned the Bonfils studio, and his Syrian assistant Georges Saboungi. The images were sold as souvenirs, and portray cities and towns, landscapes, ruins, monuments, tombs, and other religious and historic sites of Palestine, in areas now occupied by Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. Locations named in the captions include Beirut, Bethlehem, Cana, Damascus, Galilee, the Holy Sepulchre shrine, Jaffa, Jerusalem, the Mosque of Omar at the Dome of Rock, the Mount of Olives, Mount Tabor, Nazareth, Samaria, the Tomb of David, the Wailing Wall, the interior of the house of the English Consul in Damascus, a "crusader's tower" in the village of Ramleh, and various other sites.