146 - [PHOTOGRAPHS - ATHENS GREECE] JOLY DE LOTBINIERE - NOEL LEREBOURS: ACROPOLIS - PARTHENON - PROPYLAIA. ATHENS, OCTOBER 1839 [PARIS, 1840-41].

[PHOTOGRAPHS - ATHENS GREECE] JOLY DE LOTBINIERE - NOEL LEREBOURS: ACROPOLIS - PARTHENON - PROPYLAIA. ATHENS, OCTOBER 1839 [PARIS, 1840-41]. THREE ORIGINAL PRINTS, each one 27x20cm printed in a sheet of paper 38x27cm, clear capture and almost in fine condition with few very light wear at the margins, signed Phot. Dusecq et Compagnie Paris, from the personal collection of William St Clair, leading Hellenist and a specialist on Parthenon marbles. THE FIRST EVER PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN IN GREECE. Just after the invention of photography, the Daguerreotype method in early 1839, several people, trained and hired by Lerebours, started to travel around the world to take the first captures. In the last days of September 1839 Joly De Lotbiniere arrived in Athens and in early October took the first captures of Athenian monuments (three have only survived) before he set up for Egypt. They depict a general view of Acropolis from the East, a capture of Propylaia and a capture of Parthenon (with the ruined Mosque still inside). After his return in France, Noel Lerebours, a prominent French physician, who acted as the producer, turned the first captures into pictures by engraving them by highly specialized artists, as the early Daguerreotype plate was a non reproducible metal mirror and only one person at a time could look at Joly's pictures. They appeared in Paris during 1840-41 and changed world views forever. An historical set of the utmost rarity, all three first photos of Athens ever taken together.