Six beautiful views made on a journey to the Middle East to procure Arabian horses

Frisch, [Carl Friedrich]. Skizzen aus dem Orient, gesammelt in den Jahren 1840 und 1841. Nach der Natur und auf Stein gezeichnet von F. Frisch, Hofmaler in Darmstadt, Begleiter des Oberstallmeisters Baron von Taubenheim.

€ 18,000.00

Extremely rare set of six beautifully lithographed plates showing scenes made on a journey to the Middle East to procure Arabian horses for the Royal Wuerttemberg stud farms, by Friedrich Frisch (1813-86), court painter in Darmstadt. In 1840/41 he accompanied the Wuerttemberg chamberlain Wilhelm von Taubenheim (1805-94), the writer Friedrich Wilhelm Hackländer (1816-77) and the physician Karl Bopp (1817-47) on a journey to the Middle East to procure Arabian horses for the Royal Wuerttemberg stud farms Weil and Marbach. They first went to Constantinople, where they were welcomed by Sultan Abdülmecid I, continuing to Beirut, Damascus and Jerusalem. In Jaffa they met the Ottoman general Ibrahim Pasha.

The set was originally published in two instalments and available in two issues: a deluxe issue printed with a larger tinted background with white highlights (plates 1-3) and a regular issue (plates 4-6). They show: (1) a rider on a dromedary with a letter to Ibrahim Pasha; (2) the camp of Ibrahim Pasha; (3) three Bedouin horse riders; (4) another scene with Bedouins; (5) the group's passage through the Balkans; and (6) a Turkish courier. All views, except the first, include horses.

Hackländer wrote a short text to accompany the set, but it is not included. Two plates slightly soiled in the margins and some tiny tears along the extremities, otherwise in very good condition.