Baalbek, an emblematic site on the Bekaa plain in northeastern Lebanon, attracted two young architects in the 19th century who were residents of the French Academy in Rome: Achille Joyau and Gaston Redon.

As part of their "Envois", exercises imposed on the winners of the Prix de Rome in which they had to propose a restoration of an ancient monument, they drew with watercolors and rendered with scrupulous fidelity the beauty of these ruins surrounded by high walls and the arid and mountainous environment that surrounds them. The twenty-five unpublished works presented in this exhibition are unique testimonies of the archaeological site which was not excavated until 1898.

The site of Baalbek remains to this day a major archaeological jewel of Lebanon.