Mémoire sur une médaille anecdote de Polémon Ier, Roi de Pont

Rare first edition, illustrated at the beginning of the volume with an engraved line plate.

Publisher's Bradel binding in full boards covered with pink paper, smooth spine darkened, cherry-red calf lettering-piece, boards soiled.

Only three copies recorded in the CCF (BnF, Institut, Sainte-Geneviève).

The sole edition of this short monograph devoted to what was then the only known representation of this Hellenistic monarch, who ruled successively over Pontus, the Bosporus and Armenia.

The numismatist Louis Allier de Hauteroche (1766-1827) had himself served as French consul at Heraclea Pontica at the end of the eighteenth century.

Difficulties with the local authorities forced him to flee in 1803; he found refuge in Constantinople with the ambassador Guillaume Brune before joining Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel in Athens.

As a numismatist, he possessed, according to Etienne Soulange-Bodin: "la collection la plus complète de médailles grecques qu'il y ait peut-être en Europe, dans les cabinets particuliers, non seulement pour l'assortiment des pièces, fruit précieux, mais pénible, d'une infinité de recherches et d'échanges, mais surtout par leur beauté et par leur conservation".

Signed autograph presentation inscription from Louis Allier de Hauteroche to the Chevalier de Caux on the verso of the front board.