Atlas pour servir ?ÿ la relation du voyage ?ÿ la recherche de La P??rouse, fait par ordre de l'Assembl??e Constituante, pendant les ann??es 1791, 1792, et pendant la 1ere et 2eme ann??e de la R??publique Fran??aise.

This is a rare or used book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

Paris: Chez Dabo, 1817. Folio (19 ?¬ x 13 inches) atlas beautifully bound in half straight-grain navy morocco over navy moire silk boards. Spine with raised gilt bands, gilt devices in compartments and gilt lettering (erroneously titled "Atlas de La Perouse"). Complete with engraved title-page, large folding route map by J. D. Barbi?? du Bocage, and 43 engraved plates by Copia, Per??e, and Maleuvre after drawings by Piron, Audebert, P. J. Redout??, and Labillardi??re. Some occasional light foxing. French botanist Jacques Julien Houton de Labillardi??re (1755-1834) was part of the French expedition sent in La Recherche and L'Esp??rance in search of La P??rouse in 1791 under Bruny D'Entrecasteaux. Whilst the expedition failed in its primary object to discover the fate of La P??rouse, last seen exiting Botany Bay in March of 1788, many valuable scientific contributions, especially cartographic, but also ethnological and botanical, were made along the way. After Louis XVI was executed in Paris and the Republic declared, the republican Labillardi??re found himself imprisoned in Java until March of 1795. His extensive collections, including some 4000 plant specimens, were sent to England as the spoils of war. It was only with the support of Sir Joseph Banks that his collections were returned to France (ADB 1967, vol. 2, p. 63). Labillardi??re's Relation du voyage ?ÿ la recherche de La P??rouse (two text volumes, plus Atlas), first published in 1800, was the first account published from the voyage and, as noted in the ADB, "contains valuable descriptions of the lands and peoples the expedition visited, including detailed accounts of the appearance and ways of the Australian Aboriginals." (p. 69) The Atlas volume, here offered, comprises finely engraved plates of ethnological, botanical, and ornithological interest from the places visited, including the Admiralty Islands, Van Diemen's Land, Tonga, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and Fiji. As Hill (2004, 954) writes, "[t]he fine atlas volume is much prized, as it is scarce and often lacking from the set.".