Author: SÉBAH, Pascal (photographer).
Title: [Festivities in Cairo].[Late 19th century]. Three albumen prints (each ca. 19.5 x 26 cm). Housed in a clear plastic sleeve.
Description: [3] photographs.Three historically important photographs by Pascal Sébah (1823-1886), showing festivities in Cairo. The first photograph depicts the ceremony of the Dosseh. During this event, hundreds of dervishes lay on the ground in a long row while the Sheikh, seated on a white horse, trampled them. The event was incredibly popular in Cairo, but also received extensive criticism from around the Muslim world because of its barbarism. The feast was banned in the late 1880s. The present photograph appears to be the only photograph ever taken of it.The other two photographs show the arrival of the holy carpet in Cairo. This carpet was woven every year by the best Egyptian craftsmen. It was then placed into the mahmal, a special reliquary, and carried to Mecca, where it would cover the Kaaba during hajj. One of these two photographs is cut short and therefore missing its signature, but it is almost certainly also by Pascal Sébah.Sébah founded a large photographic studio in the centre of Constantinople in 1857, which came to be called El Chark, or "The Orient." He extensively photographed Egypt, including views of many of the temples as well as rare portraits of tribespeople in the Nubian desert. His work is lauded for its beautiful lighing and compositions. He won a silver medal for his Egyptian photographs at the 1878 Exposition Universelle.The two photographs of the holy carpet are slightly foxed near the top edge, and one of them is folded horizontally in the middle. Otherwise in good condition.

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