262 - [Americana]. MARTIN DE MOUSSY, V. BOUVET, L.

[Americana]. MARTIN DE MOUSSY, V. BOUVET, L. Geographical and Statistical Description of the Argentine Confederation. Paris, Firmin Didot Frères, Fils et Cie, 1873. Small folio (approx. 47 x 32 cm), (2) folios, 20 pages, and 30 folio-sized plates, folded and mounted on tabs (including the frontispiece title page). Publisher’s black half-shagreen, upper cover in black percaline stamped with frame motifs, title gilt in the center of the covers, gilt tooling, decorated ribbed spine, title and author’s name gilt (corners, edges, and clasps rubbed; upper clasp split and partially detached, a few plates loose, fold partially torn on plate XV, light foxing, particularly on the reverse of the plates, some scattered browning). The first atlas dedicated to Argentina. The most comprehensive study of this country in the 19th century. A rare second edition of this beautiful Didot publication, in which some maps are stencil-colored. Victor Martin de Moussy (1810–1869), a physician and explorer who directed the Legion’s hospital in Uruguay, as well as a geographer, spent several years in Argentina gathering precise data at the request of the Argentine government, which sought to establish the territory’s geographical and geological value and its potential for European investors. This expedition lasted more than five years, stretching from the Andes to the Chaco, from Patagonia to Bolivia, and from Uruguay to Paraná. A copy in the publisher’s binding, adorned with a large gilt stamp bearing the coat of arms of Argentina, derived from an 18th-century Jacobin club with a strongly assertive sans-culotte spirit. Beautiful allegorical frontispiece lithographed in black on a tinted background, by Bachelier after Sanier. The maps and plates are engraved by Kautz. Missing from Sabin, 44923, which mentions only the 1869 edition.