HOMMAIRE DE HELL, Ignace-Xavier. LAURENS, Jules. Voyage en T - Lot 65

HOMMAIRE DE HELL, Ignace-Xavier. LAURENS, Jules. Voyage en Turquie et en Perse exécuté par ordre du Gouvernement français pendant les années 1846, 1847 et 1848... Atlas historique et scientifique. Paris, A. Bertrand, 1859. Atlas in-folio, [2] ff. and 119 plates. Imitation navy half calf, very well executed, smooth spine decorated with gilt roulettes and fillets, garnet-red chagrin title-pieces, gilt title, cold fillets (a few small scattered foxing and light stains). Superb album of fine views, scenes, portraits and monuments of Turkey, Persia and Armenia, drawn and lithographed by the Orientalist painter Jules Laurens. Complete with 119 plates, original lithographs by Laurens, in black applied on tinted ground, including 107 picturesque scenes, monumental views or landscapes, portraits, ornaments and architecture, for the historical part (or by Laurens and Cicéri for some) and 12 plates in black, including nine maps, for the scientific part, including 9 maps engraved by Delamare and 3 drawn by Laurens and Hommaire de Hell. The drawings are remarkably well executed and meticulously detailed, almost a daily report of the expedition. The text of the report, which is missing here, was never completed due to the author's death during the voyage, in August 1848 in Ispahan. Volumes I, II and IV, collected in four volumes, were published by his wife, Adèle Hommaire de Hell, author, companion and co-editor of the journal of his expeditions. After an initial stay in Constantinople in 1835 and various trips as a civil engineer for Russia, Hommaire de Hell (1812-1848), geologist and traveler, was commissioned in 1846 by the French government to carry out a geographical mission in Turkey and Persia. He explored the shores of the Caspian and also visited Armenia and Persia, particularly Isfahan, Qom and Teheran. The enterprise made him famous, and launched the career of Orientalist painter Jules Laurens (1825-1901), who accompanied the expedition, lithographing the superb plates in the album himself, based on his drawings made on the spot. Ottoman Empire. Western Asia. Southern Russia. Atabey, 593; Hage-Chahine, 2214. Numa Broc, Asia, 243-244. [Turkey - Iran].