HAMMERSCHMIDT, WILHELM (active 1850s-1869) Album titled "Egypt," with 38 rare photographs, including scenes of the Pyramids, Cairo, mosques, temples, and locals, as well as portraits of Ismail Pasha Khedive of Egypt, Mons. de Lesseps, and 2 group portraits of British nationals. Albumen prints, sizes ranging from 10 1/8x8 1/2 to 12 1/4x9 1/2 inches (25.7x21.6 to 31.1x24.1 cm.), and the reverse (one much smaller), mounted recto only; 29 with Hammerschmidt's signature and plate number in the negative, and all but one of those also with a typed caption label adhered in the lower corner of the image (an additional image with an alternate label); the portraits with a mounted caption slip with the sitters' names and the dates, in ink, and the group portraits with the sitters' names, in ink, on the mount; the smallest image with a caption, in ink. Folio, red gilt-lettered morocco, lightly worn; bookplate on the front pastedown; all edges gilt. 1853-1860
With four photographs related to the Coupe Anglais, a horse racing cup, apparently by another photographer (including two of the trophy). A printed article titled "How We Spoiled the Egyptians," from a journal dated 1869, is enclosed with the album, and details the Englishmen's successful bid to unseat Egyptian dominance of the race. The group portrait at the end of the album includes Professor Richard Owens (a scientist), John Abernathy (surgeon and philosopher), Ferdinand de Lesseps (who appears at the beginning and the end, was the promoter and builder of the Suez Canal), Captain Butler (jockey of the winning horse in the race), Sir Samuel White Baker (an explorer), and Sir John Flower (civil engineer).
Little is known about Wilhelm Hammerschmidt's life. He apparently arrived in Egypt in the mid- to late-1850s, and set up a shop in Cairo in 1859. He likely died in, or shortly after, 1869.
