Description des principales pierres gravées du Cabinet de SAS Monseigneur le Duc d'Orléans

First edition, magnificently illustrated with a frontispiece by Cochin, engraved by Saint-Aubin, a title vignette by the same, 59 large tailpieces and headpieces (designed and engraved by Saint-Aubin) explained and deciphered at the beginning of the work, and 179 figures hors-texte each presenting an engraved stone (engraved by Saint-Aubin). Fine printing on deluxe Holland paper.

Full black morocco-grained shagreen binding ca 1850. Smooth spine with flat raised bands decorated with fillets and roulettes on the bands. Triple-ruled frames on boards with corner fleurons. Marbled edges. Light rubbing to headcaps, corners. Paper lacking to margin of one leaf in volume I. Some leaves browned. Pale angular dampstain on 3 leaves of volume I. Handsome copy, with wide margins. 

The Duke of Orléans, Louis-Philippe D'Orléans, was a great collector, both of books, antiquities and engraved stones; the latter provide useful information to archaeology and are even decisive for studies on Antiquity. Gathering engraved stones required long and patient research and much money, and there were scarcely any but sovereigns who could assemble such a collection. That of the Duke of Orléans was in this respect remarkable. At the end of the work, a letter from Daubenton on the accuracy of the representation of hippopotamuses.