Voyage dans le Levant en 1817 et 1818 par M. le C.te de Forbin

Second edition published the same year as the first, by the same publisher. Large folding plan of the Holy Sepulchre at rear. The large and famous atlas, published in only 325 copies and sold separately, is absent. At rear explanation of the 78 lithographed plates in colors that compose the atlas.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding with porphyry grain. Smooth spine decorated with 4 compartments with grotesque cross-hatching and a central ornament. Framing frieze on boards. Chocolate morocco title-label. Spine uniformly faded. Small lacks to joints at head. A slight lack at foot. Upper joint split narrowly at tail for 8 cm, and for 5cm along the lower joint. Trace of pale dampstain on half-title, title page and preliminary leaves. 3 corners bumped.
Appointed in 1816 as Director General of the Louvre museum, Forbin obtained leave from Louis XVIII to finally realize his youthful dream, a journey to the Levant. Embarking on several ships, he first visited Milos, Athens, Constantinople, Ephesus, then finally arrived at Saint Jean d'Acre, continuing to Jerusalem, Gaza, Damietta. He also visited Egypt and its principal sites: Cairo, Luxor, Thebes, Rosetta and Alexandria. He acquired numerous antiquities that would enrich the Louvre's collections. Beyond the classic and picturesque narrative of the journey, this Voyage au Levant is characterized by its aesthetic and artistic vision; Forbin was above all a man of art, and he would work extensively in France for museums, reorganizing the Louvre's collections, creating the Luxembourg museum and that of Versailles... In the Dictionnaire des orientalistes, Frédéric Hirzel writes: "Le voyage au Levant du Comte de Forbin remains one of the finest achievements of the Voyages pittoresques of the early nineteenth century. Unlike some of his predecessors, such as the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, the text here is a true narrative."