Ibrahim-Bey

Paris.: Gihaut frères éditeurs.. 1833.. Hand-coloured lithograph highlighted with gum arabic, 18.7 x 27.8 cm (image), margins a trifle toned, in very good condition. Lithograph prepared as plate 2 for "Croquis d' après nature faits pendant trois ans de sejour en Grèce et dans le Levant, Paris, Gihaut, 1833-4" by Théodore Le Blanc (1800? - 1837). Most of the plates depicted the Greek War of Independence (then raging) and provided an astonished public with images other than the more idealized pictorials of Greece and the Levant.

The French painter and army engineer officer Théodore Le Blanc stayed in Greece and the Levant for approximately three years from around 1825 to 1827, (possibly longer as his album includes a plate dated 1831, from Constantinople). Although his time coincided with the French Scientific Expedition (1829-1830), his activity was independent of it. Leblanc drew from life; his works are marked by caricature but convey intense emotion. His paintings are extremely rare; apart from portraits they include scenes from the Greek War of Independence (providing an astonished public with images other than the more idealized pictorials of Greece and the Levant) and snapshots from everyday life in the places he visited. Le Blanc took part in the French expedition to Algiers, where he died at the siege of Constantine in 1837.

Rare.

Colas 1796; Adhemar 363; Blackmer 990. .