LAVALLÉE, Joseph (1747-1816) and Louis François CASSAS. Voyage pittoresque et historique de l'Istrie et de la Dalmatie. Paris: Pierre Didot l'Ainé, An X [1802].

LAVALLÉE, Joseph (1747-1816) and Louis François CASSAS. Voyage pittoresque et historique de l'Istrie et de la Dalmatie. Paris: Pierre Didot l'Ainé, An X [1802].

A finely-bound first edition of this 'beautiful example of book production' (Blackmer). Cassas made drawings of the antiquities in Dalmatia and Istria in 1782, and his own journal of the expedition is included in part II. The plates are finely engraved, but has a complicated make-up: three of the plates, nos 9, 28 and 31, have two impressions on one sheet, while another, pl. 59, has two separate images but not two impressions. If this latter is counted as 2 plates, then the tally comes to 67 plates in total. Berlin Kat 1910; Blackmer 296; Brunet III, 884; Cohen-De Ricci p. 205.

2 parts in one volume, folio (523 x 333mm). Half-title, list of subscribers, additional engraved title with large vignette, frontispiece, double-page map and 66 plates by Perrier fils, Filhol, Réville, Delaporte, Hubert and others after Cassas, of which 3 plates double-page and 8 folding, engraved headpieces (pls. 11 and 55 creased and torn at fold, just into image but without loss, occasional faint marginal finger- and dust-soiling, pl. 1 with faint spotting mainly confined to margins, tiny marginal tear to leaf 24.1). Contemporary red straight-grained morocco, covers with broad gilt ornamental border of entwined drawer-handle roll tool within greek-key frame, enclosing inner palmette border, gilt spine with green morocco lettering-piece, gilt turn-ins and edges (extremities rubbed).

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