LE GENTIL DE LA GALAISIÈRE
Voyage dans les mers de l'Inde, fait par ordre du Roi, à l'occasion du passage de Vénus, sur le disque du soleil, le 6 juin 1761, & le 3 du même mois 1769. Imprimé par ordre de Sa Majesté[A Voyage in the Indian Seas, made by order of the King, on the occasion of the transit of Venus across the sun, on 6 June 1761 and 3 June 1769]
Imprimerie Royale|Paris 1779-1881|20 x 26.8 cm|2 volumes reliés sous étuis
First edition, illustrated with 27 engraved plates (13 in the first volume and 14 in the second – plates 1–7 mistakenly bound after plates 8–14), cf. Ryckebusch 4989. Toussaint et Adolphe D 903. Gay 3239. Robertson 129.
Full mottled fawn calf bindings, flat spines gilt with triple fillets and floral tools (gilding partly faded), gilt roll tooling to headcaps, cherry morocco title and volume labels, plain endpapers with some usual marginal soiling, marbled edges. 19th-century bindings presented in two modern custom slipcases.
Joints restored, internally clean and well-preserved.
The astronomer Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de La Galaisière (1725–1792)
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