Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey

Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (21 October 1804 – 7 December 1892) was a French scholar and draughtsman whose use of photography while he was active in the Middle East pursuing archaeology and studying ancient architecture has made him recognized as an important early photographer.

[1] Girault de Prangey was a wealthy scholar who studied painting in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and traveled as he pursued historical archaeology as an amateur.

Between 1841 and 1844, he made a grand tour that included Italy and the countries of the eastern Mediterranean, producing more than 900 daguerreotypes of architectural views, landscapes, and portraits of residents he encountered in their cultural settings.

In May 2003, Sheikh Saud Al Thani of Qatar purchased a daguerreotype by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey for a world-record price of £565,250 or $922,488.

Approximately 120 photographs that the amateur archaeologist created in Greece, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and the Levant during a self-financed tour of the region in the early 1840s were presented.