"I am sending you, my dear Egyptian, Mr. Bowes Wright, who [...] visited the sacred land and spent many happy hours amidst the colonnades of Thebes or in the tombs of the Pharaohs."
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Jean-François CHAMPOLLION (1790.1832)
Autograph letter signed "JF Champollion the younger" to François Artaud.
One small quarto page. Restoration on the fourth leaf.
Autographed address and postal markings.
The wax seal closing the letter was affixed below the signature.
Paris. November 1 , 1823.
"I am sending you, my dear Egyptian, Mr. Bowes Wright, who [...] visited the sacred land and spent many happy hours amidst the colonnades of Thebes or in the tombs of the Pharaohs."
Rare letter from the father of French Egyptology connecting two enlightened enthusiasts of pharaonic treasures.
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To Mr. Artaud, Curator of the Museum, Director of the School of Fine Arts, Palais St Pierre. Place des Terreaux. Lyon.
I am writing to you, my dear Egyptian friend, to Mr. Bowes Wright, who, more fortunate than we, has visited the sacred land and spent many happy hours amidst the colonnades of Thebes and in the tombs of the Pharaohs. I beg you to facilitate his visit to your museum and to everything else in your city that might interest him; when you meet him, you will do for him alone what I ask you to do on my behalf. Farewell, my dear friend; always with you in spirit. J.F. Champollion the Younger.
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The archaeologist François Artaud (1767-1838) directed the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon from 1812, where he assembled the antiquities of Lugdunum, notably a vast collection of ancient mosaics. It was in 1820 that he met Champollion, who fostered his passion for Egypt.
Impressed by Champollion's scientific challenge and his deciphering of hieroglyphs in 1822, Artaud sent him casts of small Egyptian objects from the collections of the Lyon museum and many other documents, such as the lithograph of the large relief of Ramses held by the descendants of the academician Jean-Baptiste Ras de Maupas. At the same time, he enriched his private collection, which until then had been primarily devoted to Roman Antiquity, with Egyptian works of art.
John Bowes Wright (1779-1836), English traveler, Egyptologist and collector, was a friend and correspondent of Champollion.