Christie’s roundel
Lot 201

OCTAVIEN DALVIMART

Closed8 October 2014

Price Realised

GBP 1,250

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OCTAVIEN DALVIMART

The Costume of Turkey. London: Printed for William Miller by T. Bensley, 1802. 2° (353 x 257mm). Two title-pages, parallel texts in English and French, hand-coloured vignette to English title-page and 60 hand-coloured stipple-engraved plates, text watermarked 1796 and plates 1805. (Short tear to one leaf of preface.) Contemporary calf and marbled boards, gilt-panelled spine (expertly re-laid). Provenance: Wm. Comyns (inscribed on paste-down) -- Maria Elizabeth Tucker (inscribed on first blank, 1839).

A FINE COPY WITH BRIGHT COLOURING OF THE FIRST EDITION. Dalvimart is known to have been in Turkey in 1798, where he executed the drawings for these plates. The descriptive text was later thought to be by William Alexander, taken from the published accounts of Turkey by James Dallaway (1797), Baron de Tott, many years in Constantinople until 1790, and others. Abbey Travel 370; Blackmer 444; Colas 782; Lipperheide Lb37.90.