[Spain; Seville]. LABORDE (Cte Alexandre de). Descripcion de - Lot 83

[Spain; Seville]. LABORDE (Cte Alexandre de). Descripcion de un pavimento en mosayco, descubierto en la antigua Italica, hoy Santiponce, en las cercanias de Sevilla... Madrid, 1806. One folio volume (67 x 52 cm), in sheets; publisher's half-cartonnage, red cloth spine, untrimmed (binding worn, minor marginal defects, occasional tiny foxing at edges of pl., pl. 21 missing). Collation: [3] ff. (fx-t., t. with vignette, dedication),103 pages, frontispiece, 21/22 plates. Spanish first edition, based on the Paris edition (1802). First scholarly work by the historian and archaeologist Alexandre de Laborde, magnificently illustrated. The work includes a color frontispiece, 21 plates, two color vignettes and 7 vignettes engraved in the black manner, all executed from the author's drawings and engraved by numerous artists, including J. Marchand, J.-B. Cloquet, L.-C.Ruotte, L.-P. Baltard, F. Aubertin, A.-T. Leclerc, J.-J. Coiny... All but four of the plates, as well as the 2 color vignettes, are printed in 3 colors using a process perfected by the German Jacob Christoph Le Blon (1667-1741) in the mid-1730's. Tradition has it that the plates were finished with a brush. The work describes the city of Italica, near Seville, the first Roman city founded in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) and home to the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian. It contains new information on Roman circuses, depictions of the Muses and, above all, on "mosaic painting, which no one had attempted [until then] to imitate on paper". Alexandre Louis Joseph, Marquis de Laborde (1773-1842), was a French archaeologist, historian and politician. After a military career, he devoted himself to the study of Spain, publishing several major works, including Voyage pittoresque et historique en Espagne (1807-1818). Under Napoleon, he held diplomatic posts, becoming a Comte d'Empire in 1810.