Émile Prisse d’Avesnes (d’Avennes) (1807-1879)

I was very taken by these gorgeous illustrations posted recently over at the indispensable BibliOdyssey. From BibliOdyssey:

Émile Prisse d’Avesnes (d’Avennes) (1807-1879) was an important mid-19th century French Egyptologist and something of a polymath. He was a soldier, engineer, writer, illustrator and talented linguist.

“When he returned to Paris in I860; Prisse brought 300 folio drawings of paintings of various epochs, each up to seven or eight meters (23 to-26 feet) long; 400 meters (1300 feet) of paper impressions of bas-reliefs; 150 photographs of architectural and ornamental details, plans,sections and elevations; and 150 stereoscopic photographs, together with his enormous collection of drawing and notes. He also brought back, and later donated to the Louvre, the skulls of 29 mummies which he had identified by era, position and individual name.” [source]

Incidentally, not long afterwards I was browsing Cooper Union Typography’s post on Aldo Novarese, and a specimen for his typeface Egizio uses a very similar image.