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This finely executed double-view of Cairo comes from Cornelis de Bruyn’s celebrated Voyage au Levant, an important illustrated travel narrative chronicling the Dutch artist’s extended journey through the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and the Levant between 1678 and 1685.
The upper register presents a wide-angle panorama of Cairo as seen from across the Nile, with a lively flotilla of Ottoman sailboats crossing the river in the foreground. The skyline bristles with domes and minarets. The hills of Muqattam rise behind the city, framing the Egyptian capital with topographical context and anchoring its Islamic urban profile within the broader Nile Valley landscape.
The lower view, set beside a reflective reservoir and framed by date palms, focuses on the city’s verdant outskirts. This tranquil rural scene includes herders and pack animals at the water’s edge, subtly contrasting the cosmopolitan grandeur of the city above with the agrarian rhythms of its hinterlands. Together, the two scenes offer a visual dialectic of urban and pastoral life along the Nile in the late 17th century.
Cornelis de Bruyn (1652–1726/7) was among the most talented and visually sensitive of the Dutch travel illustrators working in the post–Golden Age period.
Cornelis de Bruyn , 1652-c.1726 was a Dutch portrait painter and traveler.
De Bruyn painted for some years in Italy, where he was known, in Rome, as Adonis. Bruyn is remembered chiefly for the records of his extensive travels in Egypt, Persia, India, and other countries, illustrated with his own designs.
![Battle of the Nile, the Attack and Sunset... Plate [1] [with:] Battle of the Nile, at 10 O'Clock at Night... Plate 2d. [with:] Battle of the Nile, Near Midnight... Plate 3. [and:] Battle of the Nile, on the Ensuing Morning.](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/98054.jpg)
