DALVIMART, Octavien or d'ALVIMAR(T). - Lot 54

DALVIMART, Octavien or d'ALVIMAR(T). The Costume of Turkey, illustrated by a series of engravings with descriptions in English and French. London, printed for William Miller... by Howlet and Brimmer, 1804. In-folio (approx. 36 x 26 cm). (6) ff. (title and preface), (60) ff. text, 60 engraved plates. English green morocco, spine 4 false nerfs decorated with gilt roulette and gilt fillet, gilt title, triple gilt fillet and gilt roulette and cold gilt garland framing the boards, gilt roulette on the endpapers, gilt edges (spine faded, slight rubbing to binding, boards with a few pen marks, small marginal defects on some plates, leaves slightly oxidized but a good copy). The illustration consists of a title vignette and 60 aquatints in black by Dadley, William Poole and R. Jones, after drawings by Octavien Dalvimart, then finely watercolored at the time. Each plate is followed by an explanatory text in English and French. In addition to Turkish costumes, the plates illustrate other inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire: Greeks, Albanians, Bedouins, Syrians, Armenians... Second edition in its original English binding. The plates are identical to those of the original 1802 edition. All marked "Published January 1. 1802. by W Miller. Old Bond Str London" A precious artist's copy, the only one with engravings retouched by Dalvimart himself. Justified by a handwritten note pasted to the first flyleaf: "This copy is the only one of which I have taken the trouble to correct the engravings. As the author of the work in my youth, I thought it had stopped selling long ago. Being in London in 1837, however, I finally obtained it, and brought it back to Paris, where I retouched the engravings to preserve this book until my death, as I always remember with pleasure that my various works on Turkey were the first to be published under my name. D'Alvimar". Gaëtan-Octavien Souchet d'Alvimart (1770-1854), sometimes known as Souchet as a military man, was an atypical figure of the late 18th century, who was at once a military man close to Napoleon Bonaparte, with whom he fought at Brienne, an artist, a writer and an adventurous traveler. Colas, 782. Atabey, 314. Blackmer, 444. [Turkey]. [Costumes].