"Voyage in the Levant" – Baron de Forbin – Eighty Lithographs and Engravings – Paris, 1819 – Limited Edition

Voyage dans le Levant, by M. Le C.te [Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste] Forbin. Paris: L'imprimerie Royale, 1819. French. First edition printed in 325 copies only. Two parts in one volume.
An atlas-folio travelogue documenting the journey of Baron Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin to the Near East – from Greece, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, throughout Palestine, and finally to Egypt. The first part of the book describes de Forbin’s journey, and the second contains 70 lithographs after paintings by many artists, eight aquatints after watercolor drawings by de Forbin, and two engravings depicting the architectural plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Great Pyramid in Giza, archaeological artifacts, and the Catacombs of Milos.
According to Jacques Charles Brunet, the book was printed in 325 copies.
The aquatints and lithographs depict antiquities, landscapes and scenes from everyday life in cities and various sites throughout the East: holy sites and inhabitants in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Acre, Jaffa, Ashkelon and Gaza; the pyramids and other antiquities in Egypt; sights in Athens, Constantinople, Alexandria and Cairo; and more. The lithographs, by Godfroy Engelmann, were made after paintings by Carle Vernet, Émile Jean-Horace Vernet, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Claude Thiénon, Jean-Pierre Granger, and others. The aquatints were made by Philibert-Louis Debucourt.
Baron Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin (1779-1841), a neo-Classical painter by training, was appointed Director-General of the Louvre Museum in 1816. Soon afterward, in 1817, de Forbin set out at the head of a delegation to the East in order to purchase antiquities for the museum (including a statue of the goddess Sekhmet that is on exhibit at the Louvre). The delegation included, among others, an engineer, a cartographer, and painters.
[4] leaves, 132 pp; 78, [2] plates, 72 cm. Good-fair condition. Many stains, including foxing and dampstains. Some tears and small open tears to margins, some medium tears at margins of plates. Long tear to plate no. 10, restored. A widthwise tear to plate no. 18, reinforced with tape. Some worming to margins of leaves. Creases. New leather binding.