[HANDCOLOURED COLOR ENGRAVING] An inhabitant of the coast of Syria. Plate XXIII.= Un habitant de la côte de Syrie. Plance vingt-troisieme. [Ottoman janissarie of Syria]. Drawn by Octavien Dalvimart.

Original hand-coloured engraved plate. Edges gilt. Large 4to. (37 x 27 cm). With its separate sheet of descriptive bilingual text in English and French. An attractive, richly colored and detailed engraved image. Very good, bright. An original plate from Dalvimart's famous and extremely rare work 'The costume of Turkey', first edition in 1802. Little is known about Octavien Dalvimart, besides the facts that he worked in Britain as painter and engraver, and that he was living in Paris in 1803. According to the prologue to this edition, he travelled during four years (starting in 1796), always drew from nature, and was in Athens in 1797. This elegant work was first published in 1802, and again in 1818 and 1820. It includes 60 drawings of human types from the Ottoman Empire. (Abbey Travel 370; Colas 782; Lipperheide 1422). The explanatory texts, in English and French, are based on extracts from works by Baron de Tott, J. Dallaway, G.A. Olivier, M. Montague, J. Pitton de Tournefort, ?ouradgea d'Ohsson and others. Dalvimart's drawings have been used in similar albums and illustrated other travel accounts. Human types are precisely drawn and handsomely depicted in very real colors. "This plate, which represents the dress of an inhabitant of the coast of Syria, is also very similar to that worn by the Asiatic Janissaries. It is highly picturesque, and very different from the janissaries of Constantinople. In many eastern countries the climate is very variable, and the inhabitants therefore are obliged to clothe themselves warmer than Europeans perhaps might think it necessary, and to put on several kinds of dress, one over the other, that they may either lay them aside or resume them at their pleasure, as the temperature of the atmosphere varies. The blue cloak thrown over the left shoulder is for that purpose". = "Cette planche represente le costume d'un habitant de la côte de Syrie. Il ressemble beaucoup a celui des Jannisaires Asiatiques. Il est tres pittoresque, et differe beaucoup du costumes des Jannisaires de Constantinople. Dans la pluspart des pays de l'orient le climat est res variable, et les habitans sont obliges par consequent de s'habiller plus chaudement que des Europeens ne le croiroient necessaire. Ils mettent divers habillemens l'un sur l'autre; il les otent, ou les remettent a volonte, selon les variations de l'atmsphere. Le manteau bleu sur l'epaule gauche est pour cet usage"."