Félix Bonfils
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Félix Bonfils was a French photographer and writer who was active in the Middle East.
He was born on 8 March 1831 in St. Hippotyte du Fort and died in Alès in 1885. He and his family moved to Beirut in 1867 where they opened a photographic studio called "Maison Bonfils", which became "F. Bonfils et Cie" in 1878. Bonfils took photographs in Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Greece and Constantinople (now Istanbul).
In 1872 he published the album “Architecture Antique” (by Ducher press) after presenting some of his pictures to the Societé Française de Photographie. His work became well known for the tourists that travelled to those countries because they bought their photos as souvenirs. He lately opened another studio in Alès (France).
[edit] Further reading
”The Image of the East: Nineteenth-Century Near-Eastern Photographs by Bonfils” by Gavin (Carney E.S.). From the Collection of the Harvard Semitic Museum, Chicago/London. University of Chicago Press, 1982.
[edit] External links
- Anglo-American Name Authority File, s.v. "Bonfils, Félix", LC Control Number n 87127847, cited 6 February 2006
- Canadian Centre for Architecture; Collections Online, s.v. "Bonfils, Félix", cited 6 February 2006
- Union List of Artists Names, s.v. "Bonfils, Félix", cited 6 February 2006
- Images by Bonfils
- Felix Bonfils collection Princeton
