Views in Egypt, from the Original Drawings in the possession of Sir Robert Ainslie, taken during his embassy to Constantinople by Luigi Mayer: Engraved by and under the Direction of Thomas Milton: with historical observations and incidental illustrations of the Manners and Customs of the Natives of that Country
MAYER’S EGYPT with the PLATES in TWO STATES
THE COMTE de la BÉDOYÈRE–COMAR COPY
London: Thomas Bensley for Robert Bowyer, 1801 (plates dated 1801–1803). First edition.
Folio (19 1/8” x 13 ½”, 484mm x 343mm): A2 B-2D2 [$1 signed]. 54 leaves, pp. [4] (title, blank, dedication, blank) 1 2-102 [2] (2pp. list of plates). With 96 aquatint-engraved plates: 48 in two states: hand-colored and plain.
Bound in contemporary half red straight-grained morocco over salmon paste-paper boards. On the spine, seven panels. Title gilt to the second panel, with Egyptian tools (pyramid, Hathor, Mamluk arms) gilt in the others. All edges of the text-block untrimmed.
Some scuffs and chips, with bumps to the fore-corners. A remarkably fresh and finely-colored example, with the odd tanned leaves or offsetting from the plates. Gilt morocco ex-libris of Henri Huchet, comte de La Bédoyère to the front free end-paper. Ex-libris of Denys Comar laid in.
Sir Robert Ainslie (ca. 1730–1812) was named in 1775 Britain’s ambassador to the Sublime Porte (the “high gate,” used metonymically for the seat of the government of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul), and served in the role from 1776 to 1792. Himself a numismatist, Ainslie held a broadly antiquarian curiosity about the Near East, facilitated by the international Ottoman Empire, which in 1776 included much of Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, all of modern Turkey and Greece, Albania and much of the Balkans. From 1786, Ainslie traveled with or otherwise dispatched Luigi Mayer (1755–1803) as an artist to record both ancient and modern sites throughout the Empire. The two traveled together after Ainslie’s posting ended, and in 1794 Mayer returned with him to England.
Once in England, Mayer set about publishing his extensive depictions of the Near East, beginning with the present Views in Egypt; these were followed by Views in Palestine (1804) and Views in the Ottoman Empire (1803). The Views in Egypt came on the heels of Napoleon’s defeat in Egypt (although he himself left, secretly, in 1799) at the hands of the British and Ottomans in 1801, and so became a matter of national interest and not a little pride. Although the history of Egyptology in Europe stretches into the XVIIc, Napoleon’s Description de l’Egypte stoked a phase of Egyptomania best illustrated by the present work. The text was perhaps written or else commissioned by Bowyer; Mayer’s drawings were translated into aquatint by (or under the supervision of) Thomas Milton.
The present example, with “1794/ J Whatman” watermarks to the text and some plates (the rest being “E & P/1801”) — and therefore an early issue; plates were printed through 1804 and into the 1810’s — is remarkable for its inclusion of the 48 plates[1] both colored and plain (sometimes called proofs), which appears to be unique. Doubtless it is on the strength of this unique composition that it was purchased by one of the great XIXc French bibliophiles, Henri Huchet, comte de La Bédoyère (1782–1861). His first library was dispersed in 1837, allowing him to start again such that by the time of his death he owned some 100,000 volumes sold in a series of auctions (the present volume lot 2618, described as having “fig. noires et fig. color. demi-rel. mar. r. non rogn.” (i.e., plates plain and colored, bound in half red morocco with the edges untrimmed)).
Denys Comar (1937–2012; the bookplate laid in gives his death date as 2021) was one of the great late-XXc collectors of travels, with a particular emphasis on Africa. The present volume was lot 122 in the Artcurial sale of his library (10 June 2026).
Abbey, Travel 369; Atabey 785; Blackmer 1097.
[1] Abbey records a portrait of Mayer as the first plate, but as many cataloguers (including Abbey), this was not in fact issued with the book; the deposit copy at the British Museum lacked this plate.
Item #JLR0885
Price: $16,000