Stackelberg | La Grèce. Vues pittoresques et topographiques, [1829]-1834

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

STACKELBERG, OTTO MAGNUS VON

La Grèce. Vues pittoresques et topographiques. Paris: I.F. d'Ostervald, [1829]-1834

FIRST EDITION, folio (496 x 355mm.), half-title, title (dated 1834) with lithographed vignette, 28 printed text leaves (avertissement, explication, plate list and avis), 15 divisional titles each with vignette, 111 lithographed plates, 27 double-page, ALL THE PLATES AND VIGNETTES COLOURED LATER BY HAND, half morocco by Zaehnsdorf, some plates spotted or browned (?as usual)

A COMPLETE COPY OF "STACKELBERG'S CHEF D'OEUVRE, REGARDED BY MANY AS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BOOK OF GREEK VIEWS" (Blackmer). It is divided into two parts - Péloponèse and Grèce septentrionale - and they in turn are divided into sections. The first into Laconie, Messénie, Argolide, Arcadie, Elide and Archaie; the second into Attique, Béotie, Phocide, Etolie, Arcarnanie, Thessalie and Epire.

This is a rare work which is seldom found complete as it was issued in parts over a period of time. The last complete copy we have traced sold at auction was in these rooms, 15 October 2003, lot 745, £46,000. It was published uncoloured: this copy was presumably coloured at the time of binding by the luxury binder Zaehnsdorf in the first half of the twentieth century.

LITERATURE:

Blackmer 1593 (incomplete copy); not in Abbey, Atabey or Contominas