"Voyage in the Levant" – Baron de Forbin – Eighty Lithographs and Engravings – Paris, 1819 – Limited Edition

"Voyage in the Levant" – Baron de Forbin – Eighty Lithographs and Engravings – Paris, 1819 – Limited Edition
Voyage dans le Levant by M. Le C.te [Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste] Forbin. Paris: L'imprimerie Royale, 1819. French. First edition printed in 325 copies only. Two parts in one volume.
A large-format travelogue documenting the journey of Baron Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin to Near Eastern countries – starting in Greece, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, throughout Palestine, and finally to Egypt. The first part of the book describes de Forbin’s journey, and the second contains 70 lithographs after the paintings of many artists, eight aquatints after watercolor drawings by de Forbin, and two engravings depicting the architectural plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and sketches of the Great Pyramid in Giza, archaeological artifacts, and the Catacombs of Milos.
According to Jacques Charles Brunet, the book was printed in 325 copies.
The engravings and lithographs depict antiquities, landscapes and scenes from everyday life in the cities and various sites throughout the East: holy sites and inhabitants in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Acre, Jaffa, Ashkelon and Gaza; the pyramids and other antiquities in Egypt; sites in Athens, Constantinople, Alexandria and Cairo; and more. The lithographs, by Godfroy Engelmann, were prepared after paintings by Carle Vernet, Émile Jean-Horace Vernet, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Claude Thiénon, Jean-Pierre Granger, and others. The aquatints were prepared by Philibert-Louis Debucourt.
Baron Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin (1779-1841), a neo-Classical painter by training, was appointed Director-General of the Louvre Museum in 1816. Soon afterward, in 1817, de Forbin set out at the head of a delegation to the East in order to purchase antiquities for the museum (including a statue of the goddess Sekhmet that is on exhibit at the Louvre). The delegation included, among others, an engineer, a cartographer, and painters.
[4] leaves, 132 pp; 78, [2] plates, 72 cm. Good-fair condition. Many stains, including foxing and dampstains. Some tears and open tears at margins, some medium tears at margins of plates. Long tear to plate no. 10, restored. A widthwise tear to plate no. 18, reinforced with adhesive tape. Some worming at margins of leaves. Creases. New leather binding.