Du Moncel | De Venise a Constantinople, [c.1845]

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

DU MONCEL, THÉODOSE

De Venise a Constantinople a travers la Grèce et Retour par Malte, Messine, Pizzo et Naples. Paris, [c.1845]

FIRST EDITION, oblong folio (432 x 593mm.), contents: lithographed pictorial title as above; text pp.[1]-21, pp.[1]-9, [p.10 "Table des planches"]; lithographed pictorial sub-title ("... Album"), map (numbered 1) and 51 plates (no.2-51 and 36 bis), 2 folding, a few with 2 images, illustrations in text, contemporary red morocco gilt, occasional spotting, marginal tears to folding plates, some dampstaining (mostly to upper cover), rubbed

A RARE WORK containing fine views of Venice, Corfu, Athens, Corinth, Constantinople, Malta, and elsewhere. Théodose Du Moncel travelled in Greece and Turkey from November 1843 to the spring of 1844 spawning a number of publications, often with overlapping contents: Athenes monumentale et pittoresque [sometimes entitled Vues pittoresques des monuments d'Athenes] (1845 or 1846); Excursion par terre d'Athenes a Nauplie (1845), and this one. The plates in this work are of a high standard and comprise: [General title] Lepante; [sub-title] Episode de la Guerre de l'Independance; 1. Carte de Grece; 2 & 3. Venise; 4. Ancone; 5. Corfou; 6. Patras; 7. Curzola; Calamaki (2 views); 8-23. [Views in Athens, including a folding panorama]; 24. Monastere de Daphnee; 25. Eleusis; 26. Megare; 27-31 [Views in and around Corinth]; 32. Temple de Nemee et tombeau d'Agamemnon (2 views); 33. Acropole de Micenes; 34. Porte des lions; 35. Ruines de Tirynthe; 36. Vue de la plaine d'Argos; 36 bis. Antiquites d'Argos; 37. Nauplie; 38. Temple de Jupiter a Egine; 39. Temple de Sunium; 40. Syra; 41. Folieri (Phocee); 42. Smyrne; 43. Panorama de la Troade (folding plate with 3 views); 44. Les Dardanelles; 45. Constantinople; 46 & 47. Malte; 48. Messine; 49. Pizzo; 50 & 51. Naples.

LITERATURE:

not in Blackmer, Weber or Atabey

PROVENANCE: Inscription from Montalivet to the Archbishop of Bourges (seemingly Jacques-Marie Antoine Célestin Dupont, 1792-1859)