Montagu, John, fourth earl of Sandwich.

Estimate

3,500 - 4,500 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

A Voyage performed by the late Earl of Sandwich round the Mediterranean in the years 1738 and 1739. Written by himself. London: T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies, 1799

first edition, 4to (272 x 210mm.), engraved portrait, 25 plates and hand-coloured folding map, extra-illustrated with 25 engraved plates after Francis Smith (2 double-page and folding), late nineteenth-century half morocco with the original morocco gilt spine laid down, some offsetting of plates onto text, a few plates with imprints cropped (eg. at p.64, 172, 174 and 205), the folding plates with short tear at fold, old library stamp on title (see provenance)

Provenance

Oxford and Cambridge University Club, stamp on title

Literature

Blackmer 1149; Cobham-Jeffery p.55 (second edition, 1807); Contominas 477; Weber II, 522; Atabey 828

Catalogue Note

An account of a cruise in the Mediterranean during which Montagu visited Athens, the Greek islands, Constantinople, Smyrna, Cyprus, Egypt and Malta. Montagu was instrumental in forming the Society of Dilettanti.

the additional engraved plates inserted in this copy are very rare. They are after drawings by Francis Smith depicting the costume of Ottoman court functionaries, Greek and other subjects and two court audiences. Smith accompanied Lord Baltimore on his tour of the East in 1763-1764 and produced a series of drawings for him. These drawings were copied as engravings by Mazell, Vitalba, Liart, Calwall and Pranker in London in 1768-1769 and apparently published there in 1769. Atabey states "the English set is very scarce, but we have seen one copy, that in the print room of the British Museum... the plates are unnumbered [as here], and it lacks the double-page map [as here] and the three double-page plates [here one lacking]. It is possible that this was a proof set, and the work never circulated in England".

Baltimore died in Naples in 1771 where the plates were apparently acquired by Carlo Nolli who published them as Moderne curiosita di Constantinopoli, e del Levante [Blackmer 1557; Atabey 1147]. In this edition the plates are numbered in the top right corner. The Blackmer copy contained 28 plates, the Atabey copy 27, and here 25 are present (compared with the plate listings given in Blackmer and Atabey this set lacks no.1 Plan of Constantinople, no.4 The Dances or rather Devotions of the Dervishes, and no.6 Reis Effendi). Some of these plates were reprinted in Teodoro Viero's Raccolta di 126 stampe, Venice, 1783-1791 [Colas 3007].

The only sets of these prints recorded as being sold on ABPC in the last 30 years have been those of Blackmer and Atabey.