Islam Holiest Sites: Medina and Mecca Antique Engravings, Printed 1847

Medina and Mecca

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Mecca is the birthplace of prophet Muhammad and home to the Kaaba, the holiest site, while Medina is the second holiest city, where the Prophet's Mosque is located.Two original steel engravings titled “Medina et Sepulcre du Prophete” and “Temple de la Mecque,” issued in Picturesque Universe (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1847). Engraved plates measuring approximately 5" x 8.2". These mid-nineteenth-century French views present idealized yet intricately rendered representations of Islam’s two holiest cities, Medina and Mecca, produced for a European readership at a moment of expanding Orientalist travel literature and imperial curiosity about the Islamic world.

The Medina engraving offers a panoramic prospect from an elevated vantage point, depicting the walled city and the Prophet’s Mosque at its center, approached by four travelers traversing a mountainous road, some mounted on camels. The composition emphasizes distance and pilgrimage, situating the sacred city within both devotional and geographic imagination. The companion engraving of Mecca presents a detailed architectural rendering of the Masjid al-Haram complex, with the Kaaba prominently centered and surrounded by arcades and ancillary structures, the broader urban fabric faintly delineated in the background. Produced at a time when non-Muslim access to these cities was extremely restricted, such engravings mediated sacred Islamic space through European print culture, shaping nineteenth-century visual conceptions of the Hijaz. As products of a major Parisian press renowned for technical excellence, these steel engravings reflect both advances in reproductive printmaking and the period’s fascination with global religious and cultural monuments.First engraving with loss to the lower right corner, not affecting the primary architectural focal points; light age toning and minor edge wear consistent with issue; second engraving clean and well-preserved with strong plate impression. Overall very good. An evocative pair of mid-nineteenth-century European views of Medina and Mecca, documenting the circulation of Islamic sacred geography within illustrated travel literature at the height of Orientalism publishing.

Item #14623

Price: $425.00