Lechevalier, [Jean Baptiste]. Voyage de la Propontide et du Pont-Euxin.

€ 3,500.00

Variant issue of the first edition, probably the second issue altogether. "Le Chevalier had assisted Choiseul-Gouffier in his 'Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce', and was then sent to Jassy to observe Russian troop movements. His work is an account of a journey round the shores of the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea" (Atabey). While Chatzipanagioti-S. differentiates between the first and the second edition, the present variant is not described: the verso of the half-title of vol. 1 shows only the "avis au relieur"; p. 168: "Fin du tome premier"; p. 169 (beginning of text in vol. 2) is unpaginated. Thus, this apparently constitutes the second issue of the first editon.

Lechevalier stood in the service of Choiseul-Gouffier; from 1787 onwards he accompanied Alexander Ipsilanti on a tour of the Mediterranean which lasted several months. The maps show the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles, the Black Sea, the Bosporus, Constantinople, and Brussa.

Both title pages have contemporary ownership stamps ("S" with princely crown); a few minor tears to maps have been professionally repaired; some staining to title page of vol. 2. A prettily bound copy, formerly in the Ottoman collection of the Swiss industrialist Herry W. Schaefer.