Reunion Island - Lot 690

Reunion Island ROUSSIN (Louis Antoine) Album de l'île de La Réunion. Collection of drawings depicting the most picturesque sites and principal monuments of the colony. Studies of fruits and flowers, natural history, physiognomic types, historical portraits, by A. Roussin. Accompanied by a historical and descriptive text. Saint-Denis (Reunion Island), imp. Roussin, 1860-63. 4/5 volumes in-4 (volume 5 is missing); illustrated with 270 plates hors texte (75 / 80 / 69 (tear on one plate) / 46) of maps, portraits, views and genre scenes, some of the botanical and natural history plates are in color, some enhanced and gummed, others in black on Chine appliqué or in two-tone. At the end of Volume IV, sega, a Creole quadrille by F. A. (5 pages of musical staves). Impossible to determine precisely whether the works are complete, as there are more plates than advertised in the tables in 2 volumes. Scattered spotting and foxing as always on this type of paper, more or less strong depending on the volume, light rings in volumes II and III, title page of volume IV missing. A few other minor defects. Contemporary ½ red chagrin, ornate ribbed spine, gilt edges. Very rare first edition of this abundantly illustrated reference work on Reunion Island. Louis-Antoine Roussin (1819-1894) learned the technique of lithography in Achille Devéria's workshop and settled in Reunion Island in 1845. He set up his own printing house and published albums produced by himself or by visiting artists. In 1856, he began publishing his famous Album de la Réunion, which took him twenty years to complete. Fewer than 150 copies of the first four volumes were printed, and only a few dozen copies of the five-volume work.