First edition of a remarkable set on the city of Mecca, rarely encountered with the plate volume. The plates, here in the original portfolio, include 65 beautiful photographs, which are some of the earliest ever taken of the city of Mecca. They were made by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936), a famous Dutch scholar of Oriental languages and culture, and his companion Al-Sayyid 'Abd al-Ghaffar (19th century), who is recognised as the first Meccan photographer. Snouck Hurgronje lived in Mecca for five months in 1885, and was the first non-Muslim to visit the city outside of the Hajj. The photographs were taken during this time and offer a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the Meccan people in the late 19th century.
The photographs and lithographic plates show various buildings in Mecca, including the Kaaba and Al Hamidiyah palace. The vast majority, however, show beautiful portraits of Mecca's numerous colourful inhabitants and visitors, including the high Sharif and his scribe, the governor of the Hejaz region, Indian merchants, the local physician with his family, as well as hajjis from Zanzibar, Indonesia, Yemen, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, and many other places. The work is accompanied by two text volumes, which contain a historical survey of Mecca and a description of daily life in the city, complete with a folding map of Mecca, and a folding plan of the Sacred Mosque.
With a purple stamp on the title page and final leaf of each text volume. The bindings of the text volumes are somewhat stained and scratched, with a handwritten shelf mark on the spine, the front board of the first volume is somewhat warped. The text volumes are somewhat browned throughout, with small tears in some of the margins, the final leaves in the second volume have been reinforced in the gutter, a vertical tear in the second map in the first volume, the errata leaf is detached but still present. The portfolio for the plates has been re-backed, the boards are somewhat soiled and browned. The leaves that the photographs are mounted on are somewhat browned, but the photographs themselves are in excellent condition. Cf. Macro 1239 (only the text volumes); Vrolijk, A. and Leeuwen, R. van, Arabic studies in the Netherlands, a short history in portraits, 1580-1950, pp.117-150.