Voyage pittoresque à l'Île-de-France,au Cap de Bonne-Espérance et à l'Île de Ténériffe (...). Avec un atlas composé de trois cartes géographiques, et de quarante-cinq vues pittoresques dessinées sur les lieux, et gravées en partie par l'auteur

First edition of the Voyage pittoresque à l'Île-de-France, au Cap de Bonne-Espérance et à l'Île de Ténériffe, published in Paris by Auguste Nepveu in 1812 and printed by Le Normant. Two octavo text volumes with an accompanying atlas. The second text volume contains three folding tables; the atlas in the present copy comprises 45 engraved plates, both single-page and folding, including three maps and 42 plans and picturesque views, most retaining their tissue guards. 

Some foxing in the text volumes and atlas.

The text volumes in slightly later green-black polished half calf with corners, smooth spines decorated with gilt fillets, circles and large floral tools, burgundy calf lettering- and numbering-pieces, marbled paper boards framed with a blind-tooled ornamental roll. Minor rubbing to spines and boards. The atlas retains its contemporary temporary marbled-paper boards, with the spine renewed in modern green cloth and a title label mounted at the centre of the upper board. The three volumes are housed together in a modern bottle-green half-morocco box, spine with raised bands and a matching morocco title label mounted at the centre of the upper side.

Early label mounted on the front pastedown of the first volume as the bookplate of Lady Le Fleming of Rydal Hall, which was for several centuries the seat of the Le Fleming family.

Jacques-Gérard Milbert (1766-1840), painter, draughtsman and engraver, studied under the landscape painter Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes before teaching drawing at the École des Mines from 1795. In 1800 he sailed aboard the Géographe as a draughtsman on Nicolas Baudin's expedition to the Southern Lands. On the title of the present work he is also described as Director of the engravings for the historical section of the official account of the expedition.

When the Géographe reached the Île de France in March 1801, illness prevented Milbert from continuing to Australia. He remained on the island for nearly two years, using his enforced stay to study its landscapes, inhabitants, fauna, flora and geography. The Musée Léon-Dierx records the substantial portfolio of drawings he made there directly from life. In August 1803 he rejoined the Géographe on its homeward voyage and eventually returned to France aboard the ship, after a further stop at the Cape of Good Hope.

Published nine years later, the Voyage pittoresque is consequently far more than a painter's collection of travel recollections. Milbert discusses the history and administration of the Île de France, its inhabitants, agriculture and economic activities, while natural history also occupies an important place; the second volume even includes a contribution by Pierre-André Latreille on crustaceans and insects. Ryckebusch rightly notes that several sections, particularly those concerning La Bourdonnais, Pierre Poivre, administration, inhabitants and cultivation, are also relevant to the history of Bourbon Island.

The atlas provides the visual counterpart to this enquiry. The views were drawn on the spot and some were engraved by Milbert himself, as the title explicitly states. Plantations, mountains, rivers, gardens, ports and settlements are treated with the landscape sensibility acquired from Valenciennes, but also with close attention to topography and to the uses of the places represented. A number of these engravings are now preserved in public collections in the Indian Ocean, including the Musée Léon-Dierx.

This close observation also helps explain Milbert's subsequent development as a naturalist. He became a correspondent of the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle in Paris, the capacity in which he is identified in the portrait of him now preserved at the Louvre, and continued his collecting and scientific activities after his return.

Born from the same expedition as the account by Péron and Freycinet, Milbert's book offers a markedly different perspective: prevented from reaching the Southern Lands, he spent two years closely studying what had originally been intended as a mere port of call. The Voyage pittoresque records the results, bringing together in a single work the landscape painter's eye, the traveller's surveys and the observations of a future correspondent of the Muséum.