Bonfils, Damascus, and Henry Kissinger

A Bonfils photograph of the main reception hall at the house of Nizam taken in the 1870's

Félix Bonfils (1831 – 1885) was a French military photographer and writer who arrived in the Levant with the French troops sent out after the 1860 massacre of the Christians in Damascus. When the mission ended, he decided to set-up a studio for photography in Beirut that eventually became a family business to produce a priceless collection of some three thousand images of the Near East.

The Bonfils family returned to France in 1907 and their collection or at least a substantial part of it was purchased by the Semitic Museum at Harvard in the USA. Interest in the museum had waned by the 1930's and when WWII broke out, the photo collections -including that of Bonfils- were packed-up and placed in the attics; the top floor of the museum was rented to the Center for International Affairs and soon everyone forgot about all about the pictures.

Years went by and, in the course of time, Dr. Henry Kissinger became a Fellow of the above Center and kept an office there. In 1970 (when Dr. Kissinger was a National Security Adviser to President Nixon), two young radical women tried to assassinate him by planting a bomb in front of the building. Dr. Kissinger, needless to say, survived but the explosion blew a hole in the ceiling and, when the damage was being inspected, the hidden photographic treasure came to light. The images remain a valuable record of houses, streets, and monument of late 19th century Damascus. The bulk of the photographed mansions were foreign consulates and Christian and Jewish houses as they were more accessible to foreigners than Muslim ones. 


Damascus: Hidden Treasures of the Old City
Brigid Keenan & Tim Beddow
Thames & Hudson May 2000

Harvard Semitic Museum Photographic Archives, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University