La Perse ou tableau de l'histoire. 5 Volumes.

1814. JOURDAIN, Amable Louis Marie Michel Brèchillet. La Perse ou tableau de l'histoire, du government, de la religion, de la literature, etc., de cet empire; des moeurs et coustumes de ses habitans. 5 volumes. [4], xxi, 218; [4], 268; [4], 226; [4] 288; [4] 327, pp. Illustrated with 5 hand-colured engraved frontispieces, 7 hand-coloured engraved fold-out plates, 25 hand-coloured full-page plates and 2 black-and-white engraved full-page plates. 12mo., 130 x 80 mm, bound in contemporary full speckled tan calf, spine and boards gilt, green morocco spine label, rebacked with original spine laid down, a.e.g., some quires unopened and original silk bookmarks. Paris: Ferra et Imbert, 1814. First edition. An illustrated portrait of Persia; its cultural, political, and religious history by the Orientalist Amable Louis Marie Michel Brèchillet Jourdain (1788-1818). "Jourdain was born at Paris in 1788, became a distinguished Orientalist, and studied under Silvestre de Sacy and Langlès. His principal work is entitled, La Perse, ou Tableau de l'Histoire, du Gouvernement, de la Religion, de la Literature, &c. de cet Empire, 1814, 5 vols, 18mo. He was one of the contributors to the Biographie Universelle; the Annales des Voyages; the Mines de l'Orient; and he supplied Michaud with valuable materials for his History of the Crusades, collected from Arabic writers. He also obtained a prize from the Academy of Belles-Letters for a dissertation of those works of Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers, for the preservation of which we are indebted to the Arabians." - Rose, New General Biographical Dictionary, vol. 9, pp. 49. The finely coloured plates depict costumes, trades, ceremonies, sporting, landscapes, ruins and much more. The work is much in the style of the Nepveu publications of around the same time. A handsome set. PROVENANCE: From the library of George R., with his bookplate on the front pastedown. Hiler, pp. 486.