[6], 288, [8] pp. Engraved frontispiece; engraved portrait of the author; folding engraved map; 96 engraved plates (many folding or double-page, some with more than one subject), additional engraved illustrations in text. (Folio) 13x8½, contemporary calf with later (but old) rebacking. First Edition in English.
Le Bruyn [or Brun] left for Italy on 1 November 1674; he remained there for four years before departing for Smyrna, whence he visited Asia Minor, and Egypt. In 1684 he returned to Venice, where he lived for eight years and studied painting with Carl Loth. On March 19, 1693 he arrived in the Hague; he spent the next five years writing his first travelogue (Reizen van Corn. de Bruyn door de vermaardste deelen van Klein Asia, de eylanden Scio, Rhodus, Cyprus enz. mitsg. de voornaamste steden van Aegypten, Syrien en Palestina, Delft, 1698) and preparing the 215 engravings that illustrate it. A French version (Voyage au Levant dans les principaux endroits de l'Asie Mineure) was published by H. de Krooneveld in Delft in 1700 and reprinted in Amsterdam in 1714 (though Paris is given as the publisher's address); it was the basis for the English translation offered here. Le Brun was primarily a landscape artist and this is made apparent by the several fine panoramas, which include Smyrna, Rhodes, the Bosphorus, Tyre, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Palmyra and others found herein.
Condition:
Boards detached, leather very dry, brittle and well worn; frontispiece, title page and portrait detached; final 2 index leaves detached; hole of approx 1" diameter in folding map, two folding plates split entirely along folds, others with smaller splits, several plates with library stamp on verso; some foxing and offsetting; else internally very good and worthy of restoration.