Copy of the Comte de Saint-Saud - Lot 289

Copy of the Comte de Saint-Saud CHAUSENQUE (Vincent de) Les Pyrénées ou Voyages Pédestres dans toutes les régions de ces Montagnes depuis l'Océan jusqu'à la Méditerranée, contenant la description générale de cette chaîne ; des observations botaniques et géologiques ; et des remarques sur l'histoire, les moeurs et les idiomes des diverses races qui l'habitent ; avec une carte et quelques vues des Pyrénées. Paris, Lecointe et Pougin, 1834. 2 volumes in-8: 2f, 380pp, / 2f, 304pp, 2f; a map and 4 folding plates out of text with captioned leaves opposite. Minor scattered spotting. ½ 19th century brown calf, smooth spine, red title-piece, long irons and gilt pallets. "Rare first edition. A fundamental and much sought-after work, containing the first complete description of the chain." Joanne, in the first edition of his guide, borrows elements from CHAUSENQUE "whose Voyages would be as widely read as those of SAUSSURE, if the form were a little briefer and more precise". A second, "definitive" edition with 400pp. (!) of additions appeared in 1854. CHAUSENQUE was also a self-taught watercolorist, but the plates in this book, which are his own, only give a glimpse of his curious talent and his very personal style, close to naïve art, a very anachronistic technique in the midst of Romanticism! (Labarère 387)(Barbe 165a). Provenance: Copy from the library of the Count of Saint-Saud with his printed bookplate.