203 - [Holy Land]. [CASSAS, Louis-François]

[Holy Land]. [CASSAS, Louis-François] [A Picturesque Journey Through Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Lower Egypt]. [Paris, Imprimerie de la République, 1798–1799]. 3 parts in 1 large folio volume (55 x 36 cm), 147 plates. 19th-century green half-maroquin (binding very worn, volume disbound, covers detached, some slight foxing and stains, mainly in the margins on certain plates). Rare first edition of this famous series by the artist and traveler Louis-François Cassas (1756–1827). Atlas, without the accompanying text, as is often the case (Blackmer or Atabey). Comprises 79 plates from the first volume, 26 from the second, and 42 from the third, for a total of 147 copperplate engravings in black, including several fold-out plates. Fine prints, on heavy laid paper, partly cut to size. Plates executed under Cassas’s direction, based on his drawings made between 1784 and 1786 and engraved by Berthault, Duparc, Legrand, Malapeau, Picquenot, Racine, and Tilliard, sometimes finished by Daudet. In addition to site plans, they feature architectural elements, ancient sculptures, ruins, and views of historic sites such as Palmyra, Baalbek, Jerusalem, and Cairo... Left unfinished following a request for a ban by the Count of Choiseul-Gouffier, the work was published in installments of six plates each, without a title page; only the first thirty installments were ever published. The number of plates varies by copy; bibliographies list different collations: 173 according to Cohen, 178 according to Blackmer, and 179 according to Atabey. Cohen, 204. Graesse, II, 62.