PORT SHIPYARDS. LATOUR (Esprit), GASSEND (Auguste). Travaux - Lot 199

PORT SHIPYARDS. LATOUR (Esprit), GASSEND (Auguste). Travaux hydrauliques maritimes. Ouvrage descriptif pour l'installation des chantiers [...] Installation used to build the large offshore jetty in Bassin Napoléon (Port de Marseille). Plates. Marseille, (F. Canquoin), 1861. Oblong folio (41 x 51 cm), LV plates. Contemporary fawn half-chagrin, spine with 5 faux nerfs, gilt authors and title, cover preserved. A rare and invaluable document of 19th-century French technical and industrial history. Hardly ever found in albums, nor complete. Usually only the text with the date 1860 (sometimes 1861 at the same time) printed by Barile. No reference to the album currently in the CCFr.55 large chromolithographic plates after Cappeau by Canquoin. The plates in this work illustrate the stages of the maritime hydraulic works carried out to enable the construction of the large pier in the Bassin Napoléon, in the port of Marseille, by Dussaud frères at the time. In particular, they show the quarries on the Frioul islands, the Marseilles harbor, the quarrying of natural blocks and the production of artificial blocks. Edges and corners slightly rubbed, but a fine, fresh copy.