Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en Indie: verrykt met driehondert kunstplaten [...].

Folio: [8]-472-[12] pp.

Contemp. calf, gilt orn. spine with 7 raised bands (some min. def.).

Second Amsterdam edition of this account of a trans-Asia expedition by the Dutch painter C. de Bruyn (1652-1726). He travelled by sea from Amsterdam along the coast of Norway, above the polar circle to Arkhangelsk, and travelled southwards by river and overland through Russia and the Caspian Sea to Persia, the Gulf and by ship again onward to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia), back to Persia, and homewards across the Mediterranean. Very noteworthy in particular for its superb engraved plates: engr. allegorical title after B. Picart, engr. portrait of De Bruyn by G. Valck, 2 engr. maps, 14 folding, 54 double-page and 41 full-page engr. plates with 260 numbered subjects and 36 engravings in-text. De Bruyn had previously made a lengthy tour to the Levant. In 1701, at the age of fifty, he undertook an extensive journey to Persia and India via Moscow, arriving in Persia in 1703. His work contains many observations on the cities, customs, flora, fauna and antiquities that he encountered, as well as the ruins of Persepolis. The observations also cover provincial Russian cities such as Arkhangelsk, Voronezh, Samara and Saratov, Armenian customs, and Islamic inscriptions, architecture and customs. The work also includes some impressively long fold-out panoramas of Moscow (on three folding sheets), Isfahan (on three folding sheets), and Persepolis (on four folding sheets). Title in red & black. Printed in 2 col.
Ref. STCN. - Cp. Lipperheide 546 (ed. 1711).