Travels in the Levant.

Le Bruyn, Cornelius Voyage au Levant.. "Voyage Au Levant, C'est. à-dire, Dans les Principaux Endroits de L'Asie Mineur, Dans les Isles de Chio, Rhodes & Chypre &c...." Paris Chez Guilliame Cavalier, Rue St. Jaques àla Fleur de Lys d'Or. 1714
Engraved allegorical frontispiece by R du Val; title in red & black; portrait of Le Bruyn by Gerhard Valck after Sir Godfrey Kneller. large folding map of "Mare Mediterraneum" and 210 numbered copper engravings plates on 57 single leaves, 24 double-page plates mounted on guards, and 17 large folding multi -page panoramas mounted on guards, 23 engraved vignettes in the text . Second French edition. The fine panoramas include: Smyrna, Constantinople, the Bosphorus, Chios ,Rhodes, Tyre, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Aleppo, and Palmyra. Evenly toned throughout; some spotting to text and plates. Tall copy with good upper & lower margins of plates.
Contemporary full calf, worn; joints split, hinges cracked.

The first French edition was published in Delft 1700 a translation of the original DUTCH EDITION OF TWO YEARS PREVIOUSLY in 1698.

DEBRUIN (or de Bruyn), CORNELIS, also known as Corneille Le Brun or Le Bruyn (b. the Hague 1652, d. Utrecht 1726 or 1727),

Best known as a landscape artist, Le Bryun traveled widely from a young age to Vienna, on to Rome then to Smyrna, Constantinople, Egypt, Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey. (This first travel was financed by Nicolas Witsen, author, cartographer and burgomaster Of Amsterdam)
Everywhere he went Le Bruyn depicted the scenes around him, he was especially interested in places of antiquity or historic interest, and his are the first images of the interior of a pyramids and Jerusalem to be widely available to a Westerners. "I want to offer accurate pictures of those cities, towns, and buildings that I have visited, " he wrote, "and without recklessness I can claim to have done something that no one has done before" (reported by the New York society Library). After an eight-years in Venice, Le Bruyn returned to The Hague in 1693.

Most of the plates are views, including the very large multi-plate panoramas of Constantinople [1870x300mm], 2 of the Bosphorus [each 1000x300mm], Smyrna [ 990x300mm] , Chios [1250x300mm], Rhodes, Aleppo & Jerusalem [1240x300mm].
The costume plates mainly concentrate on the ornate headdresses of female Turks and Greeks
Blackmer/ Navari:225; Blackmer/Sotheby's 47; Lipperheide:546. 394 by 264mm (15½ by 10½ inches).   ref: 1960  €11000