Bruyn | Voyage au Levant, 1700

GREECE AND THE LEVANT, A PRIVATE LIBRARY, LOTS 157-213

BRUYN, CORNELIS DE

Voyage au Levant, c’est à dire dans les principaux endroits de l’Asie Mineure dans les Isles de Chio, de Rhodes, de Chypre &c. Delft: Henri de Kroonevelt, 1700

FIRST FRENCH EDITION, folio (395 x 260mm.), additional engraved allegorical title by J. Mulder after R. du Val, engraved folding map, engraved portrait of the author by G. Valck after G. Kneller, 97 engraved plates (some folding), numerous text engravings, occasional minor marginal tears, lacking last blank leaf (3F⁴), rebacked and very slightly worn

This edition of Bruyn's Voyage was translated from the Dutch of 1698. Bruyn was expatriated from Holland from 1674 until 1693, and spent from 1678 through 1685 travelling throughout the Mediterranean. Nearly all of the illustrations of his journey are based on his own designs. The plates and text engravings are notable for both their extraordinarily detailed topographical and city panoramas (some of which unfold to nearly two meters) and for their accurate costume and ethnographic figures.

LITERATURE:

STCN 833383469

PROVENANCE:

Lyonel Tolmach, inscription to front free endpaper dated 1736