Le Bruyn, Cornelius

Voyage au Levant. Delft: for Hendrik de Kroonvelt, 1700



Folio (15 ¾ x 10 in.; 400 x 254 mm). Engraved allegorical title by I. Mulder after R. Du Val, engraved portrait of the author by G. Valck after Godfrey Kneller, engraved double-page folding map of the eastern Mediterranean, 97 engraved plates of which 47 are folding or multi-page including views of Constantinople, Aleppo and Jerusalem, 26 text engravings, woodcut head- and tail-pieces; somewhat browned throughout, some rust spots and marginal spotting, offsetting from plates, thin dampstain in upper margin of some leaves in the center quires. Antique speckled calf, blindruled in a panel design.

Blackmer 225; Cobham-Jeffery, p. 7; Roehricht 1184

First edition in French.

Le Bruyn spent the years 1678-1685 in the Middle East, visiting Turkey, the Greek Islands, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Cyprus. He then retired to Venice where he painted for several years, returning to The Hague in 1693. Primarily a landscape artist, his work is filled with fine panoramic views and depictions of costumes. The plates, some of which show three or four subjects, are by Jan and Caspar Luyken. The work was first published in Dutch in 1698.