Beschreibung:

Description de l'gypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont t faites en gypte pendant l'expdition de l'arme franaise . Paris: Imprimerie Impriale, 1809-12, Imprimerie Royale 1817-[30]. 23 volumes, 2 o, including 9 text volumes (388 x 254 mm), 1 text and 10 plate volumes of Jsus (i.e. Atlas) folio (710 x 550 mm), and 3 plate volumes of Grand Monde (i.e. double elephant) folio (1075 x 700 mm). Text volumes: half-titles, 33 (of 36) engraved maps and plates, including 5 portraits. (Some pale spotting, stains to lower left corners of tat Moderne , Vol. 2, Part 1). Plate volumes: 894 plates, some folding, including 6 duplicate impressions, and of which 41 printed in color, a few with additional hand-coloring, many of the plates engraved with the help of Cont's engraving machine, illustrated in the tat Moderne section. (Some foxing, mostly faint and marginal but some plates affected, some dampstaining to upper margins in Histoire Naturelle, planches, vol. 1 , Etat Moderne, planches 1-2, and Antiquitis , planches 3-5 , affecting some images, some text pages in plate volumes browned). Contemporary French quarter red straight-grained morocco, red morocco-grained paper, covers with gilt roll-tooled borders, smooth spines gilt-lettered in compartments, edges uncut, by Tessier, binder's label on front pastedown of 2 volumes (worn, some chipping and scuffinf, some corners gnawed). Provenance : La Rochefoucauld, Duc de Bisaccia (engraved armorial bookplate in many volumes); M. Dudauville (pencil signature on several title pages). Contents: Prface Historique : 1 volume, Jsus folio. Half-title, text by M. Fourier (Napoleon is said to have edited and added to the proofs), explanation of the plates by Cont. Antiquits : Descriptions : text: 2 volumes. Mmoires : text: 2 volumes; plates: 426 plates in 7 volumes, comprising 321 plates in 5 Jsus folios and 105 plates in 2 Grand Monde folios. tat Moderne : text: 2 volumes in 3; plates: 171 plates in 3 volumes, comprising 159 plates in 2 Jsus folios and 12 plates in 1 Grand Monde folios. Histoire Naturelle : text: 2 volumes; plates: 244 plates in 3 Jsus folios. Carte Topographique : general map on 3 sheets, detailed map on 47 plates printed on 44 sheets, in 1 Grand Monde folio, engraved title, engraved map-key and index-leaf (on one sheet). FIRST EDITION. The first comprehensive description of ancient and modern Egypt, compiled by the 165 members of the Institut de l'gypte established by Napoleon to accompany his expedition to Egypt in 1798-1801. This exhaustive survey of all aspects of ancient and modern life in Egypt was carried out under the supervision of the mathematician Gaspard Monge the appointed President of the new Institute (of which Napoleon was Vice-President). It was published, in various issues and formats, over a period of 23 years. The members of the Institut were mainly civil engineers, surveyors and cartographers, but also included a chemist (Berthollet), a zoologist (Saint-Hilaire), a mineralogist, artists and art historians, an architect and a musician. "The egyptologists of the 19th century owed their knowledge of ancient Egypt to the efforts of the engineers who described the monuments of antiquity, and it was in the plates of the Description that these were revealed" (Blackmer-Navari 476, p. 104); Brunet II, 616-17; Nissen BBI 2234; Nissen ZBI 4608. Due to the variant collations of different copies, sold not subject to return. (23)