‘Champollion’, ca. 1790-1832, no.13 from the series of ‘Les Hommes Celebres’, lithograph, 10,5 x 6,8 cm
Sitting on a ruinous throne, Jean-Francois Champollion, called le Jeune, contemplates a statuette of a Pharao (wearing the red and white crown) while leaning on a palm column. The French Egyptologist is depicted on the Giza platform, (he actually camped there in October 1828), being backed up by thé face of Egypt, the Sphinx. The architecture is decribed with hieroglyphs, the language he is about to decipher. That was not an easy job: he felt the pressure of time since in Great Brittain Thomas Young started the same quest: the key to the translation, the Rosetta Stone, was in British hands (and now the British Museum) after the defeat of the French in Egypt. Champollion won. Or did he? The process was so tiring he died of a stroke, March 4th 1832.