[Near East]. - Lot 262

[Near East]. ANTIQUITY. RENAN (Ernest). Mission de Phénicie directed by Ernest Renan, member of the Institut, Professor at the Collège de France. Plates executed under the direction of M. Thobois architecte. Paris, Imprimerie Impériale, 1864. In folio, cardboard slipcase, leaves. First edition of the Atlas alone. Contains 60 color plates, out of 70 (without pl. 1 and 62-70). RARE. Includes table leaf of plates ? In 1860, Ernest Renan (1823-1892), writer and specialist in Semitic philology, was commissioned by Napoleon III to present a report on the ancient sites of Phoenicia. The results of these excavations were published in 1864 in the book Mission de Phénicie.