Beschreibung:

Recueil de toutes les troupes qui forment les Armées Françoises. Dessiné et illuminé d'après nature. Nuremberg: Gabriel Nicolas Raspe, 1761.
Recueil de toutes les troupes qui forment les Armées Françoises. Dessiné et illuminé d'après nature. Nuremberg: Gabriel Nicolas Raspe, 1761. 4° (205 x 143mm). Engraved title. 222 numbered hand-coloured plates heightened in gold and silver, including 2 bis plates. 2-leaf letterpress index at end. (Title slightly soiled, occasional staining, heavier on plates 98-100, occasional slight colour offsetting, a few plates misbound.) Contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments, gint morocco lettering-piece in one, red edges (rubbed, corners bumped). Provenance : PRINCE ADOLPHUS FREDERICK, 1ST DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE (1774-1850, inkstamp on title [Lugt 118]; possibly a gift to:) -- LUDWIG GEORG THEDEL, GRAF VON WALLMODEN (1769-1862, bookplate). FIRST EDITION. A RARE WORK ON THE FRENCH ARMY, WITH AN IMPORTANT MILITARY PROVENANCE. The first 13 plates, depicting Royal guards, are reductions of plates by Eisen, and each of the remaining plates represents a soldier and officer in each regiment with a legend giving the name of the Colonel, the rank and date of creation of the regiment, the number of battalions or squadrons, and the number of men. Colas only calls for 220 plates and Cohen-De Ricci for 214; only one other copy with 222 plates is recorded by ABPC since 1975. This copy is from the library of Ludwig, Graf von Wallmoden, who was believed to be the grandson of George II. Wallmoden served in the Hanoverian Leibgarde-Regiment, before he transferred to the Prussian army in 1790, serving in the revolutionary wars against France, and winning the Prussian Order Pour le Mérite in 1794. In 1795 Wallmoden entered the service of the Austrian army, and further distinguished himself at the Battle of Wagram and subsequent actions in a long career, which culminated in his appointment as deputy to Field Marshall Joseph Graf Radetzky in 1848. Prince Frederick Augustus, Duke of Cambridge, the seventh son of George III (and therefore a grandson of George II), was educated at Göttingen and studied military tactics at the Prussian court in Berlin, before joining the Hanoverian army as a Colonel in 1793, serving as colonel and then major-general in Wallmoden's corps in the campaign of 1794-1795, and he remained with the Hanoverian army until 1803, when he transferred to the British army. Following Hanover's recovery of its independence in 1813, the Duke of Cambridge became Governor General, and then Viceroy in 1816, a position which he held until 1837. Cohen-De Ricci 862; Colas 2059.