KAEMPFER, Engelbert. - Lot 257

KAEMPFER, Engelbert. Histoire naturelle, civile, et ecclésiastique de l'empire du Japon Translated into French from the English version by Jean-Gaspar Scheuchzer. A La Haye, chez P. Gosse, & J. Neaulme, 1729. 2 volumes in-folio, engraved frontispiece, [2] f., LII-217 p., and [2] f., 313-96 p., fr., pl. Slightly posterior fawn calf, ribbed spine decorated with gilt roulettes, blond morocco title-piece, gilt lace to the edges, red edges, text decorated with woodcut lettering and vignettes (slight rubbing to the boards, edges and nerves, two small snags on an upper board and spine). First edition in French. Kæmpfer, traveler, naturalist and physician, made a two-year voyage to Japan on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. There, he objectively observed the empire, the sovereign's court and the state, and here gives as faithful a representation as possible: "the description & ideas I give of things, though perhaps imperfect & without elegance, is of the rest exactly in accordance with the truth, without embellishment & such as the things appeared to me." (Author's preface). Illustrated with a frontispiece and 45 plates, plans or maps, all copper-engraved in black. Copy of Count François Potocki, born around 1787 in the Ukraine and related to the Princes de Ligne through his Polish mother-in-law Hélène Massalska, with his bookplate engraved with the coat of arms.