Földvári Books

Extremely Scarce Salesman’s Copy with 6 Plates

Petit-Thouars, Abel Aubert du

[Salesman’s sample of:] Voyage autour du monde sur la frégate la Vénus. [Specimen.]

Paris: Gide, 1846. First edition, salesman’s sample. In publisher’s green half morocco. Panels covered with marbled paper. Green morroco title label on front panel “Voyage autour du monde par Dupetit-Thouars. Specimen”. Marbled endpapers. Advertisement flyers (both sides) mounted to front end papers. Features six plates from the Atlas. 3 text leaves [half title, title page of botany volume, content], and 6 plates [four colored]. Extremities rubbed. One plate (Mouette à queue fourchue) discolored due to aging. Otherwise in fine condition.

Scarce salesman’s sample of Petit-Thouars’ Voyage autour du monde features six specimen plates from the atlas volume.

Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars (1793– 1864) was a French naval officer and botanist. His famous and spectacular publication describing the Venus expedition, a circumnavigation, which took place from December 31, 1836, to June 24, 1839, went to Mexico, Chile, Peru, the Sandwich Islands, California, Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, the Galapagos, and Easter Island, Sydney, and Mauritius. The account of this trip, spectacular in its scope and the diversity of its content, began to be published only a few months after Du Petit-Thouars' return to France, and concluded only 1864, all together in fifteen volumes, atlases included.

The present specimen contains six these plates of which 4 are colored (no. 2–5): 1. Danse a cloche-pieds des indigenes de l'ile de Paques 2. Chat albescent, Felis albescens 3. Mouette à queue fourchue, Larus furcatus 4. Le Myripristis lèiognathe, Myripristis leiognathus […] 5. Le vermet à échiquier, Vermetus centiquadrus […] 6. Lecocarpus Pinnatifidus.

Price: €6,000.00