Monuments, people, moments
Egypt in black and white - now on CD

The bookshop "Lehnert & Landrock" in Cairo is famous. Not only because of its excellent selection in books, maps, magazines. The real treasures are exhibited in backstage rooms, in the permanent expanding Art Gallery. Here photographs are offered. Photographs for connoiseurs. Photographs showing Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Palestine at the beginning of the last century. Photographs showing of course the monuments, but also reflecting the characters of people or impressions of the daily life. Unique photographs, catched by the eyes of a discoverer, who captured his subjects on glas plates. This discoverer was the Austrian Rudolf Franz Lehnert. His heritage is now under the management of Dr. Edouard Lambelet. Since years the owner of the bookshop is working hard with this rediscovered treasure. He is cataloging, cleaning, sorting. He tries to categorize blank photographs. An exciting but also difficult and tiring work (more background you find in a story in our archive, headline The history of the two "Ls": "About my photographs one will talk still in 200 years").

The latest result of Mr. Lambelet's systematic work is a CD with the title "Egypt 1920 (circa) The Photographs of Lehnert & Landrock (Part I)". An Egyptian symphony in in black and white for viewers on their computer screen.

The content of the CD is devided in three main parts. First of all there is of course the description of Rudolf Franz Lehnert and his German friend and partner Ernst Heinrich Landrock, the two founders of the bookshop in Cairo, and beside that the history with the ups and downs of their business. A rare contemporary document in English language. Who just needs a quick, but also pleasureable overview of the photographs, opens the section "Slide Show" (Part II) . Accompanied with soft melodies, performed by Egyptian George Kazazian on the Aoud (the traditional string instrument, the Egyptian lute), the photographs are running like a movie. In permanent changing: Pictures of pharaonic buildings and city scenes, potraits of people and rural scenes of daily life. A "movie" to enjoy, to calm down. A symphony created by black and white photographs and seductive sound, which recalls the past.

Part III offers sheer photographs. Here you have time for long views, time to choose your favorites, that you can find in "Lehnert & Landrock" also as original prints. This section again is divided, there are seven sub-sections.

The headword "Cities" compiles city shots from Alexandria, Assiut, Aswan, Esna, the Fayyoum, Giza, Ismailia, Cairo, Port Said, Suez and several photographs from the Suez Canal. The next headword, "Islamic and Coptic Monuments", offers historical pictures of the old buildings in Cairo. When accessing "Pharaonic Monuments" a torrent of photographs rains down on you. This section with pictures of the pyramids (among others the famous shots with the Nile flood that nearly reaches the giant constructions), of temples, obelisks and statues, of the sphinx and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, of mastabas and tombs - like very early shots in the tomb of Queen Nefertiti in the Valley of the Queens - offers an impressive review how the famous monuments looked before restoration. Or did you ever see a photograph from the temple of Philae on its initial island during high flood?

Much smaller is the choice under the headword "Artisans & People". Here the life of the artists, the craftsmen and traders in the streets revives. Fascinating "Portraits" are collected under the next headword. Sometimes wrinkled faces, telling the stories about whole lived lifes others the dreams of an upcoming life, faces, they show the shy and reserved beauty of women and girls. Behind "Scenes" one find a selection of photographs, where it seems as if they are shot just by the way: Caravans, pictures of different tribes, a very special tree, blossoms and plants like for example cotton, several views of the river Nile. This section finally is followed by "Highlights", a fine selection of the very best photographs.

For each photograph is mentioned the name of the place and the name of the particular monument or a short description of the scene that is shown (all in English). In addition you find a number of the item, in case you want to order or find the original print with "Lehnert & Landrock".

 

The CD is produced in cooperation of "Lehnert & Landrock Art Publishers" and the "National Center for Documentation of Cultural & National Heritage", a department of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. A second CD with photographs from the nearly inexhaustible store of Rudolf Franz Lehnert is under preparation.

Available is the CD (price LE 90) in the moment in Egypt only:

In bookshop "Lehnert & Landrock" (picture left: the entrance of the bookshop), 44 Sharia Sherif, Downtown, Cairo (closed on sunday) (Text Wolfgang Sliwka)

Important notice :
You can open the CD only with Windows programmes, users for example of Apple Macintosh computers need a software that is compatible with Windows!