Collection of photographic plates shot in Ottoman-Empire-ruled territories of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

Tancrède Dumas (1830–1905) was an Italian photographer of French descent who opened a photographic studio in Beirut in 1860. In 1875 he was hired by the American Palestine Exploration Society to document the region.

Felix Bonfils (1831-1885) was a French photographer and writer who was active in the Middle East. Bonfils initially worked as a bookbinder but in 1860 he joined General d'Hautpoul's expedition to the Levant. Soon after returning from Lebanon he became a photographer. The family moved to Beirut in 1867 where they opened a photographic studio called 'Maison Bonfils'. In his first four years as a photographer Bonfils reportedly produced 15,000 prints of Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Greece, and 9,000 stereoscopic views.

Peter Bergheim (1813-1895) was born in Jewish family and converted to Christianity after emigrating to Britain in 1834. In 1838 he arrived in Palestine with the British Mission and worked first as a pharmacist at the Mission hospital in Jerusalem. Bergheim began taking photographs in the late 1850s or early 1860s, inspired Tancrède Dumas. He joined Dumas studio in Beirut, while also maintaining a successful photography shop in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Hippolyte Arnoux (c.1860 – c.1891) was a French Orientalist photographer and publisher. He was one of the first photographers, alongside Bonfils, to produce images of people and places in Ottoman Egypt.

Four vols, oblong folio, restored original half-calf with blind-tooled gilt ornaments and gilt titles to front; TBC