Le Japon illustré. Ouvrage contenant 476 vues, scènes, types, monuments et paysages dessinées [sic] par E. Bayard, H. Catenacci, Eugène Cicéri, L. Crépon, Hubert Clerget, A. de Neuville, M. Rapine, E. Thérond, etc., une carte et cinq plans

First edition in book form, illustrated with 5 color plans of Kyoto, Osaka, Yedo, Asaksa, Imato, and Yokohama, a map of Japan, two plates depicting examples of Japanese syllabaries (Katakana and Hiragana), and 476 wood-engraved illustrations within the text (see Cordier, Japonica, 670; Wenckstern I, 5; Nipponalia I, 2036).

Contemporary red half shagreen bindings, spines with five raised bands decorated with blind-ruled fillets and gilt compartments; joints slightly split then discreetly restored at head and tail; boards covered in grained cloth with blind-stamped borders; endpapers and pastedowns of white moiré silk with minor, marginal spotting; all edges gilt.

A handsome copy of one of the first major travel accounts of Japan published in French.

Swiss statesman Aimé Humbert (1819–1900) was sent to Japan in November 1862 as Minister Plenipotentiary. On February 6, 1864, he signed a treaty of friendship and commerce with the Tokugawa shogunate. His richly illustrated travel narrative (with drawings by Alfred Roussin) was first serialized from 1866 in the periodical Le Tour du monde.