With Color Plates of Americans (Including California Native Americans)
And Four Colored Maps
Styled the third edition on the letterpress title page, of this wonderful colorplate costume book, which includes four color maps incorporating hand-colored depictions of exotic animals ("augmentée de quatre gravures contenant des cartes et des animaux"). The costume plates present a delightful, if at times fanciful, view of international dress for the time.
Bibliographers do not agree on the total number of plates of the various editions. This is likely due to extant examples lacking some of the plates. Colas and Gumuchian describe examples with 29 and 30 costume plates, respectively. The present example has a total of 33 plates (including the 4 maps, the allegorical frontispiece and the pictorial title page); it lacks only the plate of the Samoyed and Kamchadals ("Les Samoyedes / Les Kamtschadales").
The excellent engravings - all with delicate original hand color - are by Jacques Louis Constant Lecerf, who was active as a print maker in Paris during the early 19th-century.
Rare and curious collection - Gumuchian.
California Indians - Natchez Native Americans - Tahitians - Hawaiians - New Hollanders - Greenlanders
Several of the plates are of American interest, including a plate showing the dress of the typical early 19th-century American man and woman, sharing the same sheet with that of Natchez Native Americans; another plate pairs Mexican Indians with Native Americans of California; Brazilians and Peruvians; Patagonians and Chileans; Canadians and Greenlanders, and the like.
Several plates show Pacific islanders, including Tahitians (the man and woman both with tatoos), Hawaiians, and New Hollanders from Australia.
The allegorical frontispiece is notable for its depiction of a female figure pointing to a ship in the background as she rests amid two globes, an astrolobe, and numerous maps, as well as plaques memorializing the explorers James Cook, Bougainville and La Perouse.
The four maps are beautifully hand-colored:
- Map of North and South America, surrounded with American fauna: a turkey, a polar bear, a beaver, a llama, and a sea otter.
- Circular map of Europe surrounded by a horse, a rooster, a bull, a dog, a goose, a deer, and a lamb)
- Map of Asia, with elephant, monkeys, leopard and lion.
- Map of Africa, with camel, tiger, and rhino.
The hand-colored costume plates are as follows:
- Français / Anglais
- Ecossais / Hollandais
- Suédois / Lapons
- Russes / Polonais
- Autrichiens / Hongrois
- Italiens / Napolitains
- Suisses, Canton de Berne / Espagnols
- Turcs d'Europe / Arabe du Désert, Femme de la Meeque
- Les Persans / Les Indiens de L'Indoustan
- Chinois / Japonais
- Tartares / Georgiens
- Ostiacks / Tongouses
- Habitans des Iles Maldives / Chingulais, ou Habitants de l'Ille de Ceylan
- Habts. des Iles Philippines / Habts. de la Nouvelle Hollande
- Les Egyptiens / Les Abyssiniens
- Algériens / Marocains
- Habts. Du Sahara / Negres du Sénégal
- Negres des Guinée / Negres du Congo
- Les Hottentots / Les Cafres
- Habts. de la Terre de Natal
- Habts. du Monomotapa
- Habts de la Cote de Zanguebar / Habts. de Madagascar
- Canadiens / Groenlandais
- Mexicains / Californiens
- Brasiliens noirs / Péruviens
- Patagons / Habts du Chili
- Habts. d'Otahiti / Habts. des Iles Sanwich
Rarity
This edition is rare. OCLC locates only two examples, at Yale and the National Library of New Zealand.