Pascal Coste | Monuments Modernes de la Perse, 1867, first edition

Pascal Coste

Monuments Modernes de la Perse... Paris: A. Morel, 1867

FIRST EDITION, folio (562 x 440 mm), half-title and title printed in red and black, 56 plates by Muguet, Hymaly, Sauvageot, Bachelier and others after Coste, numbered I-LXXI, of which 7 double-page, 8 chromolithographed, illustrations in text, red half morocco over marbled boards, spine with raised bands in six compartments, a few plates with minor spotting (generally marginal), neatly rebacked retaining most of original spine

FIRST EDITION OF "PROBABLY THE SINGLE MOST ATTRACTIVE BOOK ON PERSIA AND ONE OF THE RAREST" (Ghani). Pascal Coste (1787-1879) was appointed architect to Mehmet Ali in 1818. He spent 10 years in Egypt, completing, among other projects, the reconstruction of the defences at Abukir. His work Architecture arabe was a result of his time in Egypt. The present work, together with Voyage en Perse (1842) and Monuments anciens de la Perse (1844), grew out of the French diplomatic mission to Persia in 1839-1841, on which he was accompanied by Biberstein Kazimirski.

PROVENANCE:

Nineteenth-century bookseller's label of B.T. Batsford, High Holborn to front pastedown; Maxwell J. Macartney (c.1814-before 1881), armorial bookplate; Christie's London, 21st May 2014, lot 104

LITERATURE:

Wilson p.49; Ghani p.630; Diba p.141; cf. Blackmer 415; not in Atabey