Les ruines de Palmyre,<br />

The finest early survey of Palmyra. A tall well-margined copy, finely bound, of the finest early survey of Palmyra.

Not only an important architectural source book, '... as a dispassionate and accurate survey of the architecture of antiquity; it wrested the lead in such matters from the French, and initiated a series of archaeological works that came to characterize the activities of both connoisseurs and architects in England in the second half of the eighteenth century' (Millard).

In 1750 Wood, accompanied by John Bouverie, James Dawkins, and an Italian artist Giovanni Battista Borra, made a protracted journey through Asia Minor and Syria, eventually reaching the ruins of Palmyra and Balbec in 1751. Dawkins produced the official account of the tour, while Wood did the work on the topography and inscriptions.

First edition, French text issue; large folio (55 × 38cm), 57 engraved plates by P. Fourdrinier, J. Muller & T. Major after drawings by Borra, on 59 sheets (3-sheet panorama not joined), light toning as usual, occasional light offsetting; particularly fine contemporary French catspaw calf, boards with double gilt ruled border to edges, with thistle tool to corners, spine richly gilt in compartments, with red morocco lettering piece, expertly rebacked with old spine laid down, expert repairs to edges; an extremely handsome example.

Millard (British Books), 92; Blackmer 1834.