Martin du Tyrac, Louis Marie (Lodoïs), Comte de Marcellus. Souvenirs de l'Orient.

€ 1,800.00

First edition of the travelogue of the French diplomat who secured the Venus de Milo for the Louvre in 1820. The Comte de Marcellus was appointed to the embassy at Constantinople in 1815, and in 1820 was sent to the ports of the Levant and the religious establishments of Palestine. His travels took him to Scio, Delos, Melos, Santorin, Cyprus, Sidon, Cairo and the pyramids, Rhodes, Athens and Smyrna. During his mission the peasant Yorgos Kentrotas discovered the Venus de Milo inside a buried niche within the ancient city ruins of Milos. The French ambassador Charles François de Riffardeau acquired the statue for France, but it was Marcellus who prevented its shipment to Constantinople and arranged for the Venus to be taken aboard a French ship instead. Chapter VIII of volume I is entirely dedicated to the Venus de Milo and its story, including an engraved illustration of the masterpiece. The other plate shows Pierre Gary, a guard of the Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali.

Occasional foxing. Hinges professionally restored. Provenance: contemporary library stamp of the French ethnographer Eugène de Froberville (1790-1871) to both title-pages. Later in the collection of the British historian William St Clair (1937-2021) with his pencil ownership to the front free endpaper of volume I.