THE PAGNON COLLECTION
OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES
Albert Ferdinand Pagnon was born in Bourgoin, France, on 1 January 1847. He moved with his parents to Egypt in 1855 where he took over the family hotel business on the death of his father. The growing tourist industry led by Thomas Cook and Son encouraged the building of new hotels. In 1889 John Cook, Thomas's son, "lent his former agent Pagnon #11,000 to buy the firm's hotel at Luxor". In 1892 Albert was having the Karnak Hotel at Luxor built and during the 1890's he built two more hotels with Cook money, first the Grand Hotel at Aswan and then the Cataract Hotel (now known as the Old Cataract Hotel and the setting for the film Death on the Nile).
In 1907 he opened what the Egyptian Gazette called the "latest addition to M. Pagnon's palaces in Upper Egypt", namely the Winter Palace. However on 19 March 1909 he died of pneumonia in Aswan; the obituaries all speaking of his kindness and integrity, the Egyptian Gazette of 7 May calling him the hotel King of Upper Egypt.
A pottery canopic jar lid, in the form of a human head, wearing a false beard, with traces of polychrome -- 4¼in. (10.7cm.) high, Dynasty XVIII (circa 1490-1402 B.C.)
Details
A pottery canopic jar lid, in the form of a human head, wearing a false beard, with traces of polychrome -- 4¼in. (10.7cm.) high, Dynasty XVIII (circa 1490-1402 B.C.)