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Choiseul-Gouffier, Marie Gabriel August, Comte de: : Vue de Constantinople prise des Jardins du Palais de France [Istanbul]

Copper engraving, 40 x 55.5. cms, black and white as issued, blank verso. From “Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece”, volume II, plate 76 (although the plate was engraved in 1783 the second volume was published in two parts in1809 & 1822).

Choiseul-Gouffier accompanied the Marquis de Chabert’s 1776 expedition to chart the eastern Mediterranean. He and the artist J.B. Hilaire explored the islands of the Archipelago, the coast of Asia Minor and parts of mainland Greece. His account of their travels, the first volume of Voyage Pittoresque, was an immediate success and in 1784, in the wake of its publication, Choiseul-Gouffier was appointed ambassador to Constantinople where he was able to continue his researches. After the Revolutionary government deprived him of office in 1792 he found it prudent to spend several years of exile in Russia, but in 1802 returned to France to resume work on the second volume. He died in 1817 and the work was completed posthumously by Barbie du Bocage.

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