Atlas pour servir … la relation du voyage … 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 LabillardiŠre. Some occasional light foxing. French botanist Jacques Julien Houton de LabillardiŠre (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 LabillardiŠre 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). LabillardiŠre's Relation du voyage … 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.".