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This large folio from the Description de l’Égypte (Description of Egypt) is the fourth volume of the scientific publication of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. From December 1798 until February 1799, Baron Dominique Vivant Denon was the sole artist that accompanied the French troops into Upper Egypt. His drawings of the magnificent ruins of temples, such as Dendera, Thebes, Esna, and Edfu, were the first accurate European records of those monuments (for his 1802 publication of his travels, see Denon’s Voyage). Denon’s rich portfolio inspired additional French archaeological and artistic missions up the Nile during the brief Napoleonic occupation, resulting in the ten folios and two text volumes of the Description de l’Égypte. Magnificent drawings such as this view of Dendera Temple, dedicated to the goddess Hathor, were tremendously influential in fostering the obsession with Egypt—“Egyptomania”—of the nineteenth century in Europe and America. Temples like Dendera were also among the inspirations for Henry Austin’s Grove Street Cemetery gateway.

Artist or Author

Antiquités

Provenance

France

Museum

Facsimile

Accession Number

1971 Folio 601