JOSEPH-PHILIBERT GIRAULT DE PRANGEY (1804-1892): THE JOURNEY TO THE EAST OF A PIONEER OF THE DAGUERROTYPE

Abstract

This article analyzes the figure of Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey: French traveler, orientalist scholar and daguerreotypist of the 19th century. His contribution to the History of Photography is fundamental since he was a pioneer in the use of the daguerreotype from 1842 on his trip to the East, traveling through the current countries of Italy, Malta, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Israel, and Lebanon. In addition, he was a great artist –watercolorist, draftsman–, he was interested in botany and gardening and stood out for his studies on Islamic architecture and archeology in the Middle East and in Andalusia, a region, the latter, which he visited in 1832. This research uses primary sources –his writings, writings of the time and his daguerreotypes– to build a biographical account in which the first moments of photography are interrelated –released in 1839, just three years before Girault de Prangey’s departure to the Near East– with the interest in Orientalism that existed in Europe in the 19th century.