Narcisse Berchère, Le Désert de Suez: cinq mois dans l'Isthme.
Edited by Barbara Wright

MHRA Critical Texts Vol. 24
ISBN 978-1-907322-10-5
1 October 2010
(In French)
Pbk £9.99 / $15.99 / €11.99

Le Desert de Suez cover

Narcisse Berchère was commissioned by Ferdinand de Lesseps to make a visual record of the first phase of the construction of the Suez Canal. To this end, he spent five months in the Isthmus, from November 1861 to March 1862. He is said, by his first biographer, Bernard Prost to have completed an 'album', containing 68 plans, drawings and watercolours.

This 'album' was given by Berchère to Ferdinand de Lesseps, who then presented it to Emperor Napoleon III, via the Duc de Bassano. It was held at the Palais des Tuileries in Paris, where it is believed to have perished, when the Palace was burned down in 1871, at the time of the Commune.

Fortunately, Narcisse Berchère also gave a verbal account of his experiences in a book, published by Jules Hetzel in 1863, Le Désert de Suez: cinq mois dans l'Isthme, of which this is the first new edition.

Connu surtout comme peintre orientaliste, Narcisse Berchère fut commandité par Ferdinand de Lesseps pour apporter un témoignage visuel de la première phase de la construction du canal de Suez. Au cours de sa mission, il passa cinq mois dans l’isthme de Suez en 1861 et 1862, et exécuta un album de 68 plans, dessins et aquarelles, qu’il remit à Lesseps, lequel l’offrit ensuite à l’empereur Napoléon III. Cet album aurait été détruit dans l’incendie du palais des Tuileries, sous la Commune en 1871. Heureusement, Berchère fit également de son séjour un témoignage écrit, dont le texte publié constitue la première réédition.

Professor Wright is Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin.

"This re-edition and informative introduction by Barbara Wright thus puts back into circulation a text that self-consciously promotes the notion that ‘canaliser’ is a synonym of ‘coloniser’. ... This re-edition is invaluable, since the twenty illustrations from Le Tour du monde of 1863, presented in the appendix, are the sole survivors of the commission, a welcome glimpse of Berchère’s oeuvre, lost in Versailles during the Commune."

Peter Dunwoodie, MLR, 107 (2012), 625-26.

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Narcisse Berchère, Le Désert de Suez: cinq mois dans l'Isthme. Edited by Barbara Wright

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Narcisse Berchère, Le Désert de Suez: cinq mois dans l'Isthme.
Edited by Barbara Wright