Background
Félix Bonfils was born on March 8, 1831 in Saint-hippolyte-du-fort, Languedoc-Roussillon, France.
(From street scenes to portraits, landscapes to architectu...)
From street scenes to portraits, landscapes to architectural studies, this fascinating collection of photographs allows us to glimpse a time and way of life now past: Ottoman Syria, Palestine, and Egypt in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
https://www.amazon.com/Arab-Lands-collection-University-Pennsylvania/dp/9774245695/?tag=2022091-20
2000
Félix Bonfils was born on March 8, 1831 in Saint-hippolyte-du-fort, Languedoc-Roussillon, France.
Félix Bonfils learned the craft of photography from Abel Niepce de Saint-Victor around 1866-1867 when he moved to Beirut, Lebanon.
Félix Bonfils was a bookbinder as of 1858, he officially turned to photography in 1867. He established La Maison Bonfils there, a photographic publishing house that continued to operate well after his death under the direction of his wife and son. He also opened a studio in Alais (now Alès), France.
Bonfils' firm published tens of thousands of prints and lantern slides of Near East culture, more than any other studio. In 1871 he announced to the Société Française de Photographie, of which he was a member, that he had produced "15,000 prints and 9,000 stereoscopic views."
The photographer's techniques included the use of the Dallmeyer triplet lens, wet collodion glass-plate negatives, and albumen prints. Many of the views in his photo albums were taken by other photographers, although no specific credits are given.
(From street scenes to portraits, landscapes to architectu...)
2000Bedouin Violin Players
1880Guardian of the Tomb and his family
1880Women of Siloé, Palestine
1880Road to Bethlehem
1880Arab man with a pipe
1880Well of St. Mary, Nazareth
1880Bedouin Chief of Palmyra, photochrom
1880Bedouin mothers carrying their children, photochrom
1880Chief of the Bedouin shepherds
1880Quotes from others about the person
Robert A. Sobieszek, Carney E. S. Gavin: "Bonfils' photographs of the Near East - its landscapes, its cities, its architecture and its peoples - are some of the most telling and evocative traces of the Romantic Orient made in the last century."
In 1857, Félix Bonfils married Marie-Lydie Cabanis. When his son, Adrien, fell ill, Félix remembered the green hills around Beirut and sent him there to recover, being accompanied by Félix's wife.The family moved to Beirut in 1867 where they opened a photographic studio called "Maison Bonfils".