19th-century Drawing Of The Port Of Alexandria By Léon Morel-fatio, Marine Painter

An elegant pencil drawing on paper, likely depicting the port of Alexandria, by Léon Morel-Fatio. This artist, born on January 17, 1810, in Rouen and died on March 2, 1871, in Paris at the Louvre's Museum of Marine and Ethnography, was an official painter of the French Navy (1853) and a French politician. A painter, draftsman, illustrator, engraver, and watercolorist, he was curator of the Louvre's Museum of Marine and Ethnography, which he founded, assistant curator of the Imperial Museums, and the first mayor of the 20th arrondissement of Paris from 1860 to 1869. One of Morel-Fatio's canvases depicts the storm of February 11, 1835, and another shows the Rue Bab-Azoun. The painting "The Attack on Algiers" was commissioned by Louis-Philippe for the historical museum at Versailles in 1836. It was exhibited at the Salon of French Artists in Paris in 1837. On January 22, 1857, Morel-Fatio was officially appointed curator of the Naval Museum. Furthermore, under his guidance, the museum's collection was enriched with paintings and works of art. Acquisitions came through purchases or loans from the museums of Versailles and the Louvre, notably the series of views of French ports by Joseph Vernet. Numerous ethnographic objects from the major exploration and colonization missions are also attributed to him. This exquisitely detailed drawing undoubtedly depicts the entrance to the port of Alexandria at that time, with its Ottoman and Mamluk fortifications, and also shows men in djellabas against the backdrop of the old lighthouse of Fort Quaibay. High-quality work in very good condition, signed with a monogram of a red anchor in the lower left corner with the anchor of marine painters.