VENDU
4 volumes broadsheet (610 x 435 mm) 1 nn. (half-title, with an engraved scale on the verso), engraved title by Cipriano after Mazois dated Rome 1812, 2 nn.ll. 59 pp., 40 engraved plates (numbered 1-2, and 1-38) including one double page for volume I; 2 nn.ll., one engraved title page by Féoli after Mazois, 104 pp., 58 plates (numbered 1-3, and 1-55) including 2 double page and one foding for volume II ; 79 pp., 54 engraved plates including the title (numbered 1-50, 9bis, 13bis, 14bis, and two plates numbered ’16’) including 2 folding and 8 in colours for volume III ; 2 nn.ll. VI, 91 pp., 51 engraved plates including the frontispiece (numbered 1-49, 2 plates numbered 48, and one unnumbered plan) of which 3 double page and 8 in colours for volume IV. Contemporary blue boards, flat spines with red morocco spines labels.
1 in stock
Brunet, III, 1561.
First edition (except for the first volume, which is in second edition) of the first detailed scientific monograph on Pompeii.
François Mazois (1783-1826) entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1803 where he studied under Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Charles Percier and Pierre Fontaine. In 1808 he left for Italy where he met Joachim Murat and in 1809 became draughtsman to Caroline Murat, Queen Consort of Naples. Thanks to his benefactress, the young artist was allowed to study and draw the antiquities of the kingdom of Naples and in particular those of Pompeii, work that he carried out between 1809 and 1811. Mazois did not see the end of this monumental publication, begun in 1812, interrupted with his death in 1826. It was completed by François-Christian Gau in 1838.
His work allows for the first time an overall vision of the life of an ancient urban city. “From then on, our artist had no other home than the ruins of Pompeii; he spent whole weeks there, measuring the monuments, the private houses, copying the paintings that decorate them, and having for his only company the guardian of the city and the labourers clearing the streets and houses filled with volcanic ashes” (see : Notice sur M. Mazois, vol. IV, p. III).
The volumes contain the following details: Streets, tombs, walls and gates of the city (volume I); Private buildings. Preceded by an Essay on the dwellings of the ancient Romans (volume II); Public monuments, porticoes, etc. (volume III); Continuation, text of the book (volume III); Suite, text by M. Barre (volume IV. The last volume also contains a biographical note on Mazois written by Chevalier Artaud as well as the Explanation of the great mosaic found in Pompeii in 1831, by Quatremère de Quincy.
Complete copy with its 2 engraved titles, 202 engraved plates (16 of which are coloured or partially coloured) and the lithographed plan in volume IV with details of the city of Pompeii and cross-references to the corresponding plates in the 4 volumes. In addition to the plates the work is decorated with 45 beautiful vignettes (beginning of text and tail pieces).
Small waterstain in the white margin at the beginning and end of volume I.
A very good copy of this rare publication.
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