Le Hay, - and Charles de Ferriol.

Estimate

40,000 - 50,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Recueil de cent estampes représentant différentes nations du Levant, gravées sur les tableaux peints d'après nature en 1707 & 1708. Par les ordres de M. de Ferriol ambassadeur du roi à la Porte; et mis au jour en 1712 & 1713 par les soins de M. le Hay. Paris: chez Basan graveur, 1714 [but 1715, or later]

Folio (507 x 320mm.), engraved throughout, comprising: title with preface by Cars on verso, 'anecdotes' (pp.I-II), 'explication des figures' (pp.III-XIV), leaf of music (printed recto), and 102 plates (3 double-page), all with fine old hand colouring, heightened with gold and with mica chips, contemporary French mottled calf, 3 line gilt border to covers, spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges, binding very slightly rubbed, spine repaired at head and foot

Provenance

Lord Colchester, gifted to the Constitutional Club Library, 1887, bookplate; C. Robert Bignold, bookplate

Literature

cf. Blackmer 59; Cohen-de Ricci 392; Colas 1819-20; Atabey 430

Catalogue Note

a fine copy with old colouring, heightened with gold and with mica chips added to simulate jewels in buckles and finery.

arguably the greatest colour-plate book of the ottoman empire. In addition to the plates depicting Turkish court, noble, military and other costume, the work illustrates the regional, religious and national costumes of other parts of the Ottoman empire, including Greeks, Albanians, Jews, Armenians, Persians, Indians, Arabs and Moors.

The engraving of the plates was commissioned by Charles de Ferriol (1652-1722), French ambassador to the Porte between 1699 and 1709, after drawings by the Flemish artist J.B. van Mour, who lived and worked in Constantinople for many years during the first part of the eighteenth century. It has been suggested that van Mour went to Constantinople in the entourage of Ferriol in 1699. A large proportion of his art work was commissioned by the then Dutch ambassador to the Porte, Cornelis Calkoen, some of which are now in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum.

This is the second edition of the work, by Cars and Basan. "There is... [an] edition, with engraved letterpress, issued by Laurent Cars and the engraver Basan, who presumably was responsibe for the engraved text. Although the Cars edition is dated 1714, it must have appeared after the 1715 text [i.e. first edition] since there are references to the text in Cars' preface" (Atabey).