Cedars of Lebanon

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

After settling in Lebanon in 1867, Félix Bonfils opened a photography studio, La Maison Bonfils, in Beirut. The studio’s photographers produced images across the Mediterranean and Middle East, supplying local tourists and European collectors with photographs illustrating biblical scenes, landscape views, and portraits of all kinds. Bonfils’s images project his allegiance to France, which backed the Maronites, a Christian community, in conflicts over Lebanese land and goods—including desirable exports such as cedar trees. Lebanon’s cedars are referenced often in the Bible, sometimes described as “cedars of God.”

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