Tableaux des armées de l'Europe

with an original watercolour

An exceptionally rare and fine album of plates depicting the armies of Europe.

The engravings comprise tableaux of the Imperial Russian Army (two plates), the French Army (two plates, Cavalry and Infantry), the British Army (designated plate 1), the Royal Danish Army, the Swedish Army, the Austrian Army (two plates), the Prussian Army (two plates, Cavalry and Infantry), the Saxon Army (two plates), the Royal Army of Hanover, the Royal Army of Bavaria, the Royal Army of Würtemberg, and the armies of the Grand Duke of Hesse. The engravings are largely the work of Georg Emanuel Opiz (1775–1841), a Bohemian German painter and graphic artist. He studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and later taught at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig.

Landscape elephant folio (64.4 x 77 cm); seventeen hand coloured engraved plates, mostly after Opiz, some after Hilscher and Bommer and Wunerlich, the images ruled in black and with grey wash borders, captions in German and French with the national arms of the army depicted, most with engraved dedications in French signed as Louis de Kleist, plus an original graphite, watercolour, and gouache drawing on paper (53 x 71 cm) tipped in, evidently by Georg Opiz, calligraphically captioned 'Die Koniglich Sachsische Armee nach der Organisation von 1812' (a preparatory drawing for the for the first Saxon Army plate) and initialed by Kleist (LvK); 19th century quarter maroon morocco over navy cloth boards, a fine copy.