Charles-Louis Balzac
Charles-Louis Balzac was an architect and draftsman from France who lived from 1752 to 1820. He was one of the many artists taken to Egypt during Napoleon’s infamous invasion of Egypt in 1798.
Though not much is known about Balzac’s life, we do know that he was born and worked in Paris, France. As a respected architect and draftsmen, in May of 1798, Balzac was commissioned to travel to Egypt with a body of 167 professionals, including engineers, mathematicians, naturalists, and scientists to document and record Egypt’s buildings, ruins, monuments, flora, fauna and terrain as well as the region’s society and forms of commerce. Most of Balzac’s illustrations were made of pen and ink wash on paper, before being engraved by publishers.
Napoleon Bonaparte, inspired by Alexander the Great, attempted to take over Egypt in an attempt to gain control over the land route to India. He wanted to add Egypt to the French Empire to increase France’s power while hurting Great Britain’s economy. In 1798, he set out for Egypt with over 55,000 soldiers and 400 ships. As Napoleon had recently been elected to the French Academy of Sciences, he also wanted to document the historic and natural environment of Egypt while finding ways to improve the standard of living. This was the expedition that recovered the Rosetta Stone, which allowed researchers to be able to read the Egyptian hieroglyphs, a skill that was lost before the fall of the Roman Empire.
Soon after, however, Napoleon’s power quickly fell and his team of experts were left to fend for themselves, often falling under the scorn of the army who thought of them as a nuisance. Despite the lack of resources, help, and dignity they received, they arduously documented every detail of everyday life and historic architecture. After years of being abandoned and some deaths, they finally found a boat ride home.
The French occupation lasted until 1801 when they were ousted from Egypt by the British. The British confiscated the Egyptian items the French were bringing back home but allowed them to keep their research. Though the military campaign was a disaster, the expedition exposed Europeans to Egyptian art and history. They became obsessed with this foreign and exotic land, and Egyptology pervaded their art and culture.
All of the research and drawings from the expedition were published over a 20-year period, starting in 1809, in Description de l’Égypte, which included 23 volumes, ten of which just contained the illustrations. Balzac worked under Vivant Denon, an archaeologist appointed by Napoleon for the expedition, who afterwards became the first director at the Louvre.
During Balzac’s time in Egypt, he traveled to many famous sites, including Cairo, Luxor, and Giza. He was present and was a witness to the Revolt of Cairo in October 1798, when the Egyptians in Cairo unsuccessfully rose up against the French occupiers.
After his return to France, Balzac remained in Paris until his death in 1820 at 68 years old.
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