Prisse d'Avennes, deluxe issue

PRISSE D'AVENNES, Achille Constant Théodore Emile (1807-1879) and James Augustus ST. JOHN (1801-1875). Oriental Album. Characters, Costumes and Modes of Life in the Valley of the Nile. London: James Madden, 1848.

A deluxe copy of the first edition with the plates fully colored and mounted on card. Who was Who in Egyptology (London, 1972) describes Prisse as the "most mysterious of all the great pioneer figures in Egyptology," and this early album, published in the same decade that he undertook excavations at Thebes and discovered the Table of the Kings at Karnak, justifies his reputation as "a fine artist and outstandingly brilliant observer," equally interested in the costumes of men and women. The Anglo-Indian in Arab dress seen in the frontispiece is the botanist George Lloyd (1815-1843), and the artist's posthumous dedication records that the young man had suggested "this series of drawings, illustrative of the valley of the Nile," before his untimely death in a shooting accident. St. John, who was responsible for the letterpress, was also the author of the two-volume Egypt and Mohameed Ali, or Travels in the Valley of the Nile (1834). Atabey 1001; Blackmer 1357; Brunet IV, 885; Colas 2427; Lipperheide Ma30; not in Abbey.

Folio (575 x 442mm). Chromolithographic additional title, hand-colored tinted lithographic frontispiece and 30 hand-colored plates by Lemoine, Lehnert, Mouilleron, Le Roux and others after Prisse d'Avennes, printed by Lemercier, all mounted on card and loose as issued (spotting and three small nicks to title, frontispiece with a small nick; spotting and corner dampstain to mounts, spotting just visible in skies of about 5 plates, faint tideline in pl. 30). Letterpress title, dedication, plate list and 60pp. of descriptive text by St. John with 35 wood-engraved illustrations. Contemporary plain wrappers (gutta percha binding perished, some toning and wear, light spotting at ends, corner chip to first three leaves). Original morocco-backed portfolio with gilt-lettered morocco cover label (heavily rubbed at cover edges, backstrip and the three inner flaps all separated and worn).