Voyage dans le Levant.

70 lithographs, 8 aquatints & 2 engravings. The scarce first edition of Forbin's Voyage with text and plates together of which Brunet says only 325 copies were printed.

Forbin's was one of the first important French books to use lithography on a grand scale, and the standard of production is equal to that of Napoleon's Description de l'Égypte. The plates are after drawings by Forbin, Isabey, Prevost, Fragonard and Carle Vernet. The aquatinted plates are all after drawings by Forbin himself. Most of the plates illustrate views in Egypt and Syria, including the famous view of Drovetti, French consul in Egypt, measuring a giant head. In 1816 Forbin replaced Denon as Director of Museums, and in 1817 he undertook a year-long voyage to the Levant, having been authorised to purchase antiquities for the Louvre. He travelled to Milos where his son-in-law had negotiated the purchase of the recently discovered Venus de Milo, and from there to Athens, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine. From Jaffa he travelled overland to Egypt and visited Alexandria.

First edition; elephant folio; 80 plates, including 70 lithographs, 8 aquatints, & 2 engravings; contemporary calf over blue paper boards, red morocco label to upper cover, vellum tips; spine rubbed, corners worn; internally a fine clean uncut example.

Atabey 447; Blackmer 614; Colas 1089; Hilmy I, 163; Koç I, 209; Weber 70;