Beschreibung:

CHORIS, Louis (1795-1828). Voyage pittoresque autour du monde, avec des portraits de sauvages d'Amérique, d'Asie, d'Afrique, et des iles du Grand Ocean; des paysages, des vues maritimes, et plusieurs objets d'histoire naturelle. Paris: Imprimerie de Firmin Didot 1822. [Bound with:] Vues et paysages des regions equinoxiales recueillis dans un voyage autour du monde. Paris: 1826.
Two important works by Choris, including the first edition of "the great colorplate book of the Northern Pacific" (Forbes); bound together with Vues et paysages, the author's Kotzebue atlas published four years later. The plates in Voyage pittoresque, “one of the very valuable and fundamental works on Alaska, California, and the Hawaiian Islands,” are after drawings by Louis Choris made on Kotzebue’s world voyage of 1815-1818 (Lada-Mocarski). Choris, a German-Russian artist, was appointed the official draughtsman of the expedition when he was only twenty. Essentially, this is an album of illustrations; the text records the most memorable episodes of the voyage and full explanations of the plates—more of which relate to California, Hawaii, Kamchatka and Alaska than any other work of the period—and the Philippines, Chile and Easter Island. It is arranged in 8 sections which were first sold in 22 livraisons, 1820-1822 (although both Brunet and Howes state that publication ended in 1823). Two title pages were printed, dated 1820 to accompany the first livraison, and 1822 for the successive parts (this copy has the first). There was only one issue of the text and plates, according to Forbes, and although a lithographic portrait of the artist is found in a few copies, its presence does not constitute an issue point. Indeed, it may have been produced only after the work was completed.
The text was written and edited by J.B. Eyries and the list of subscribers accounts for 188 copies. Choris supervised the execution of the plates himself and reworked several to his liking. The manuscript text of the voyage was never published but his album is highly prized for its beauty and its historical record. Forbes writes that it contains "a final and very beautiful pictorial examination of the Hawaiian Islands and of Hawaiian culture as it existed prior to the death of Kamehameha I in 1819, and prior to the abolition of the 'kapu' or feudal system following the king's death" and considers it “the great colorplate book of the Northern Pacific.”
Bound with this copy of Choris's Kotzebue atlas is Vues et paysages des regions equinoxiales, produced four years later, which centers on views in the Atlantic and Pacific Islands. Five of the views in this work depict the coast of Brazil, three show Chile, eleven are of the South Pacific and Hawaii, with the remainder concerning Kamtchaka, the Marianas, Manila, the Cape of Good Hope, and St. Helena. Although far less known than Choris's Voyage pittoresque, this remains a very handsome and pleasant production, and is here most appropriately bound with its famous cousin, forming a kind of sequel to the Voyage pittoresque. Pittoresque: Best of the West 46; Creating America 99; Forbes 541; Hill 290; Howes C-397 ("c"); Lada-Mocarski 84. Vues: Forbes 632; Lada-Mocarski 90; Sabin 12885
Folio (420 x 260mm). Untrimmed. Pittoresque: frontispiece and 104 hand-colored lithograph plates (toned with scattered spotting, crease to title page); two maps, one folding (folding map with short tear and repair). Vues: Half title, 24 hand-colored lithograph plates. 19th century half morocco over marbled boards (some rubbing). Provenance: William S. Reese (bookplate; his sale, 22 May 2022, lot 302).