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Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée par Léon de Laborde et Linant, publié par Léon de Laborde
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- Subjects
- Archaeology, Ancient Near East & Egyptian
- Egypt - Description and travel
- Authors/Creators
- Laborde, Léon de, 1807-1869
- Artists/Illustrators
- Deroy, Isidore Laurent, 1797-1886
- Laborde, Léon de, 1807-1869
- Linant de Bellefonds, Louis Maurice Adolphe, 1799-1883
- Printers/Publishers
- Didot, Jules, active 1822-1841?
- Giard, active 1830
Laborde, Léon Emmanuel Simon Joseph de, marquis
Paris 1807 – 1869 Fontenay-sur-Eure
Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée par Léon de Laborde et Linant, publié par Léon de Laborde.
Paris, Giard (Imprimerie de Jules Didot l’Aîné), 1830 (–1833)
broadsheet folio (555 × 390 mm), (48) ff. letterpress, signed π1 (half-title; Explication du frontispice) 2π2 (dedication; Préface) 1–441 (45)1 (Liste des Planches) and paginated (i–viii) 1–87 (3), with 47 vignettes printed with the text, engraved in wood by the author,1 and by Andrew, Best, Branston, Lenoir, Nesbit, Porret, Slader, Thompson, Williams;2 plus lithographed title with vignette on ‘india’ paper (papier de chine), mounted, and sixty-nine unnumbered plates, mostly lithographs on india paper, mounted (one not on india paper is hand-coloured), of which four are folding (including a map), drawn by the author or by Linant, and lithographed by the author, and by V. Adam, Arnault, Best, Bichebois, Chapuys, Courtin, Deroy, Desmadryl, A. Deveria, Dumenie, Engelmann, Fragonard, Georges, Hostein, Marin, Olivier, Oudard, Sabatier, Smith, Villeneuve, Werner.3
Tipped in before the dedication is an Avis from the publisher apologising for the late delivery of the general map, together with instructions for the binder.
Some discolouration in margins; tissue interleaves spotted. Binding slightly rubbed, but overall a very fine copy.
bound in olive green morocco, decorated in gilt with crescent and star tools.
First edition of a detailed, day-to-day report of the author’s exploration of Petra in 1828, illustrated with a fine series of lithographs after his own drawings, and after drawings by his travelling companion, the engineer Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds, known as Linant Pasha (1799–1883). Laborde and Linant set off from Cairo on 23 February 1828, dressed as Bedouins, and arrived at Petra on 17 or 18 March. They managed to remain for six days, before their guides discovered that the plague was raging in Wadi Mousa, and insisted on their leaving at once.4
It had been agreed between the Laborde and Linant that each would publish an account of their trip, Laborde in France, and Linant in England. Laborde’s work was published in twelve livraisons, issued from 23 January 1830 to 30 November 1833;5 Linant’s never materialised. For at least ten years, until the publication of David Roberts’s lithographs, Laborde’s illustrations were the only graphic representation of Petra available in the Western world.
In this copy, the lithographs are printed on india paper and mounted, as in the Blackmer,6 Atabey,7 and Botfield copies;8 in another issue, they were printed directly on the sheets.9
references Claus Nissen, Die zoologische Buchillustration: Ihre Bibliographie und Geschichte (Stuttgart 1969), no. 2335; Pétra retrouvée: Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée, 1828, edited by Christian Augé and Pascale Linant de Bellefonds, Les grandes aventures de l’archéologie (Paris 1994)
1. G.K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten, iv (1871) pp.382–383 no. 1170.
2. The subjects of these vignettes and their engravers are listed (and four vignettes reproduced) in a lengthy advertisement for the publication: ‘Ouvrage Terminé. Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée par MM. Léon de Laborde et Linant’ in La Revue de Paris 57 (December 1833), (4 ff. paginated 1–8, inserted after p.140).
3. ‘Liste des Planches et Indication de la page ou elles se trouvent expliquées’ (folio 451); also ‘Titres des planches du Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée’ (in the advertisement cited in note 2 above).
4. Christian Augé and Pascale Linant de Bellefonds, ‘Deux Français à Pétra: le voyage de Laborde et Linant de Bellefonds en 1828’ in Archéologia 262 (1990), pp.48–59; Marcel Kurz and Pascale Linant de Bellefonds, ‘Linant de Bellefonds: Travels in Egypt, Sudan and Arabia Petraea, 1818–1828’ in Travellers in Egypt, edited by Paul and Janet Starkey (London 1998), pp.61–69; Pascale Linant de Bellefonds, ‘From Cairo to Petra: Léon de Laborde and L.M.A. Linant de Bellefonds, 1828’ in Unfolding the Orient, edited by Paul and Janet Starkey (Reading 2001), pp.193–208.
5. Georges Vicaire, Manuel de l’amateur de livres du xixe siècle, 1801–1893 (Paris 1894–1920), iv, 758–759.
6. Leonora Navari, Greece and the Levant: the catalogue of the Henry Myron Blackmer collection of books and manuscripts (London 1989), pp.196–197 no. 929; and Sotheby’s, ‘The library of Henry Myron Blackmer ii’, London, 12 October 1989, lot 757. The Blackmer copy apparently lacks the dedication leaf (2π1) to Landgrave William ii of Hesse.
7. Sotheby’s, ‘The Ottoman world; the library of Şefik E. Atabey. Volume iii, Se–Z and Supplement’, London, 30 May 2002, lot 1466.
8. Christie’s, ‘Highly important printed books, manuscripts and bindings [from Beriah Botfield’s library at Longleat]’, London, 23 June 1993, lot 66; Alastair Hamilton, Europe and the Arab world: five centuries of books by European scholars and travellers from the libraries of the Arcadian Group, catalogue of the exhibition held at the Musée de l’Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 17 October 1993–16 January 1994 (Dublin 1994), pp.176–181 no. 63 (Botfield copy).
9. Joseph-Marie Quérard, La France littéraire; ou, Dictionnaire bibliographique (Paris 1830), v, p.345: ‘Prix du vol. de texte, impr. par Jules Didot l’aîné, avec vignettes et culs-de-lampe, manière anglaise, et un atlas de cartes, 20 fr., et des planches: 1a livraison, composée de 5 planches imprimes sur demi-colombier vélin superfin satiné, et pap. de Chine, 20 fr., et sur pap. blanc seulement, 50 fr.’.