Voyage en Grèce et dans le Levant fait en MDCCCXLIII et MDCCCXLIV

First edition of this important series of plates, published in Lyon by Louis Perrin in 1858 following Antoine-Marie Chenavard's journey through Greece and the Levant in 1843-1844.

Folio. 81 steel-engraved plates by various artists, including Dubouchet, after drawings by Antoine-Marie Chenavard and Étienne Rey: a route map, a plan of Athens dated 1843, and 79 plates numbered I-LXXV. The series includes plates LVIbis and LVIIbis, called for in the plate list, together with XXVIIIbis and XLVIIIbis, neither of which appears in the list and both of which occur only in certain copies. The present copy therefore contains 81 plates, as against the usual collation of 79. Each plate is accompanied by its explanatory text leaf. Plates LIX and LX were transposed when the volume was bound. Blackmer 334; Atabey 230; Brunet II, 1831.

Modern green half calf with corners, spine with four false raised bands framed by black rules, black calf lettering-pieces for title and author, boards covered in almond-green felt-finish paper. One scrape to the lower board. Leaves mounted on cloth guards. First leaves slightly soiled in the margins, a few pale marginal dampstains to some plates, margins uniformly toned.

The work originated in the extensive journey undertaken by Antoine-Marie Chenavard (1787-1883) from 1 September 1843 to 22 February 1844 in the company of the painter Étienne Rey and the architect Jean-Michel Dalgabio. Together they travelled through Greece, Turkey and Egypt, recording the monuments, landscapes and antiquities they encountered. Chenavard had by then taught architecture at the École des beaux-arts in Lyon for twenty years; both architect and draughtsman, he approached buildings with particular attention to their construction, proportions and relationship to their setting. He was elected a corresponding member of the Institut in 1855.

The journey gave rise to two distinct forms of publication. Chenavard first published his Relation in 1846, followed by a second edition in 1849. Nearly fifteen years after his return, he revisited the drawings made on the journey to produce the imposing folio volume of 1858. Although often described as the "atlas" to the Relation, it is more properly regarded as a separate publication, distinct in format and date and, above all, in the central role accorded to the images.

Athens naturally forms the heart of the series. Chenavard and Rey record the Parthenon, the Temple of Athena Nike, the building then known as the Theseion, the so-called Prison of Socrates and numerous details of the Acropolis; the views and architectural studies continue through Delphi, Corinth and elsewhere in Greece before following the travellers towards Constantinople and Egypt. Picturesque views alternate with architectural surveys, plans and archaeological details. Sotheby's accordingly describes the compositions as after Chenavard or Étienne Rey, a useful reminder that this substantial graphic record also preserves the work of a journey undertaken collectively.

The original scheme was more ambitious still. The work was apparently intended to appear in forty parts of four plates each, for a projected total of 160 plates, but only approximately half of this programme was ultimately completed. According to Brunet, only 200 copies were printed.

The date of the drawings adds considerably to their documentary interest. Made in 1843-1844, they record the monuments before the major archaeological campaigns and alterations that transformed several Greek sites during the second half of the nineteenth century. The eye remains that of a traveller, but the hand is an architect's: Chenavard does not merely depict the ruins, but records their forms, arrangements and architectural details.

An attractive copy of the fullest known form of the series, containing all 81 recorded plates, including the supplementary XXVIIIbis and XLVIIIbis omitted from the original plate list. Fifteen years after the journey, Chenavard thus gave the drawings made on the spot the form he ultimately intended for them: no longer illustrations to a travel narrative, but a visual record of the monuments he had seen.