Jules Goury and Owen Jones's Alhambra

Jules Goury and Owen Jones’s Alhambra: Reconsidering Biography in an Historiographic Context Samuel Ray Jacobson, MIT Interior of a tomb, on either side a man is reclining on a divan and smoking a hookah. Ancient Egypt. Lithograph by George Moore, after Jules Goury.

Views on the Nile: from Cairo to the Second Cataract: drawn on stone by George Moore, from sketches taken in 1832 and 1833 by Owen Jones and the late Jules Goury. With historical notices of the monuments by Samuel Birch. London: Graves & Warmsley, 1843.

2/10 Title Page Lithograph by Owen Jones.

Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra, from Drawings Taken on the Spot in 1834 by Jules Goury, and in 1834 and 1837 by Owen Jones. Vol. 1. London: Owen Jones, 1842. Scan made available online by the Smithsonian Institution, c/o the Internet Archive. Downloaded July 17, 2012

3/10 Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra, from Drawings Taken on the Spot in 1834 by Jules Goury, and in 1834 and 1837 by Owen Jones. Vol. 1. London: Owen Jones, 1842. Scan made available online by the Smithsonian Institution, c/o the Internet Archive. Downloaded July 17, 2012

PLANS,

E LEVATIONS, SECTIONS

AND DETAILS

OF THE ALHAMBRA:

FROM DRAWINGS TAKEN ON THE SPOT IN 1834 BY THE LATE M. JULES GOURY AND IN 1834 AND 1837 BY OWEN JONES, ARCHIT.,

WITH A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF THE INSCRIPTIONS AND AN HISTORICAL NOTICE OF THE KINGS OF GRANADA, FROM THE CONQUEST OF THAT CITY BY THE ARABS TO THE EXPULSION OF THE MOORS, BY MR. PASCAL DE GAYANGOS. VOL. I.

LONDON: PUBLISHED BY OWEN JONES MDCCCXLII

4/10 Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Details of the Alhambra, from Drawings Taken on the Spot in 1834 by Jules Goury, and in 1834 and 1837 by Owen Jones. Vol. 1. London: Owen Jones, 1842. Scan made available online by the Smithsonian Institution, c/o the Internet Archive. Downloaded July 17, 2012

5/10 Crystal Palace at Sydnam P.H. Delamotte, 1854, Albumen print from collodion negative. Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum

“Court of Lions,” Alhambra Courts Egyptian Outer Court

6/10 Plate 40, “Moresque No 2.” Lithograph by after Owen Jones.

The Grammar of Ornament. London: Bernard Quaritch, 1868. Scan made available online by the lfredo Malchiodi, Anita Malchiodi and Carlos Alonso Cabezas, c/o The Illuminated Books Project. Downloaded January 17, 2013

1. From the centre Arch of the Court of Lions. 2. From the Entrance to the Divan Hall of the Two Sisters. 3. From the Entrance to the Court of the Lions from the court of the Fish-ponds. 4. From the Entrance to the Court of the Fish-pond to the Hall of the Boat. 5, 6. From the Arches of the Hall of Justice.

1. From the centre Arch of the Court of Lions (detail)

7/10 Plate 40, “Moresque No 2.” Lithograph by after Owen Jones.

Four Points:

1. Universally admired ornament can always be found to be in accordance with the laws regulating the distribution of form in nature. 2. Despite the varied manifestations, these laws are based on only a few basic ideas. 3. In each age, ornament gradually declines until the fixed ideas on which they are based are rejected, and the process starts again. 4. The future progress of ornamental art can only be obtained by looking to nature, which holds the “guides to find the true path” for that endeavor. That path can also be gleaned from the “experiences and accumulated knowledge” exhibited by the thousand years of ornament shown in this book.

8/10 Advertisment Lithograph by Owen Jones.

In the summer of 1834, Messers Jules Goury and Owen Jones visited Granada, in the hope of being able to give to the world a more perfect representation of the Palace of the Alhambra than had hitherto been obtained; they believed that they derived peculiar advantages for the fulfillment of this design from having previously passed a considerable time in Egypt, in the study of the valuable remains of Arabian architecture which that country possesses. After a residence of six months in the Alhambra, Monsieur Jules Goury fell a victim to the cholera, which at that period infected the whole of Europe. Overwhelmed by the loss of an attached friend and valuable coadjutor, Mr. Owen Jones at once returned to England; and, in the following year, commenced the publication of the original drawings. In the spring of 1837, he re-visited the Alhambra, and completed the collection. To ensure perfect accuracy, an impression of every ornament throughout the palace was taken, either in plaster or with unsized paper, the low relief of the ornaments of the Alhambra rendering them peculiarly susceptible to this process: these casts have been of essential service in preparing the drawings for publication, and having been placed with them in the hands of the engravers, have greatly contributed towards the preservation of that peculiar sentiment that pervades the Arabs.

9/10 Plate 40, “Leaves and Flowers from Nature No 6.” Inset, “Club, Eastern Archipelago” Lithographs after Owen Jones.

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