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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Self-portrait 1840 |
Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804-1892) learned to make daguerreotypes in the early 1840s immediately after the process had been invented. A great bulk of heavy and cumbersome photographic material then accompanied him on a three-year tour of the Mediterranean. He made the three images below in Athens on the Acropolis in 1842. According to curators at the Getty Museum, these are now the "earliest surviving photographs" created there.
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Athens - Propylaeum 1842 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Athens - Parthenon 1842 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Athens - Tower of the Winds 1842 |
Back at home in France, Girault de Prangey preserved his daguerreotypes with care, using them as the basis for drawings and lithographs which he published. The photos themselves were not "discovered" until the 1920s and not exhibited until the end of the 20th century.
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Rome - Temple of Vesta 1842 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Jerusalem - Haram al-Sharif 1842 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Jerusalem - Esplanade of the Temple of Solomon 1842 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Jerusalem - Dome of the Rock 1842 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Egypt - Lotus columns 1843 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Egypt - Cairo mosque 1843 |
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| Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey Columns |