MILBERT (Jacques-Gérard). Itinéraire pittoresque du fleuve H - Lot 81

MILBERT (Jacques-Gérard). Itinéraire pittoresque du fleuve Hudson et des parties latérales de l'Amérique du Nord. Paris, Henri Gaugain et Cie, 1828-1829. 2 volumes of text, large in-4 (34.2 x 25.5 cm); (4 of which the last is blank)-xxxvi-146-(2 of which the second is blank) + (4 of which the last is blank)-257-(3 of which the first is blank); and one volume of plates, large in-folio. All in a homogeneous binding: cherry half calf, spine ribbed and decorated with gilt and black motifs with two black-tinted entrenerfs for the titles and tomaisons, marbled edges; restoration to a headpiece, slightly rubbed jaws, restored marginal tear to a leaf of the first volume, a few freckles (period binding). FIRST EDITION. DIARY OF HIS STAY IN THE UNITED STATES FROM 1815 TO 1823. Arriving in New York in October 1815, Milbert first found employment as a technical draftsman for steamboat engines, then earned a living as a drawing teacher and portrait painter. In 1816, he spent six months working on the preparatory levelling work for the Champlain Canal (linking Lake Champlain to the Hudson River), as part of a team under the direction of a French engineer colonel. In 1817, Milbert was commissioned by the French ambassador, Hyde de Neuville, to assemble a collection for the Natural History Museum: he spent almost seven years doing so, travelling through New York State, Massachussetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and took a trip to Virginia to see the famous "natural bridge". He collected and shipped over 7,500 specimens of animals, plants and minerals, along with fossils and drawings. It was Milbert who first directly observed bison, mink and bald eagles in France. Returning to Paris in 1823, he set to work editing the present Itinéraire pittoresque. IMPORTANT LITHOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION ON APRES NATURE DRAWINGS (mainly by Milbert), comprising 54 out-of-text lithographs by various artists including Adam, Jacottet and Villeneuve, including: a title, a double plate of maps, one of which is hand-colored, 54 views printed on chine appliqué (numbered 1 to 53, with the unnumbered plate often missing) with polyglot captions (French, English, German, Latin). Milbert's drawings, lithographed under his direction, were mainly made during his 1816 steamboat trip up the Hudson River to the site of the future Champlain Canal, and mainly concern New York State. While Milbert focused on the beauty of natural landscapes (not forgetting Niagara Falls), he also depicted cities (New York, Albany), and witnesses to the early days of industrialization: a foundry, a distillery, a cotton mill, steam-powered devices, sawmills... It also features a key site from the American Revolutionary War, the field near Saratoga where English general John Burgoyne surrendered to American general Horatio Gates in 1777. PAINTER, NATURALIST AND TRAVELLER, JACQUES-GERARD MILBERT (1766-1840) began his career as a drawing teacher at the École des Mines (1795). A keen traveler, he was employed on a mission to the Pyrenees to survey mining sites, then, in 1799, in the Alps to study the possibilities of improving the road network between Switzerland and Italy and navigation on the Rhône between Geneva and Lyon. In 1800, he was part of the Baudin expedition to the South Seas, but left ill in 1801 at the port of call of Ile-de-France (Mauritius), where he remained until 1803, publishing after his return an important Voyage pittoresque à l'Ile-de-France, au cap de Bonne-Espérance et à l'île de Ténériffe, illustrated with copper-engraved plates (1812). In 1815, he left for America in a personal capacity, then remained there on an official mission for the Natural History Museum. Returning in 1823, he published the present work. A RARE COPY IN A FINE CONTEMPORARY BINDING.