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Item #43025 Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique. Nicolas PONCE.
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Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.
Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.
Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.
Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.
Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.
Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.

Recueil D'estampes Representant Les Differents Evenemens de la querre qui a procuré independence aux Etats Unis de l'Amerique.

Paris: chez M. Ponce et chez M. Godefroy, [1784]. 4to. (11 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches). 16 hand-coloured engraved plates total including the title "Precis de cette guerre" with text and vignettes, 15 plates and maps with integrated explanatory text (12 views, 2 maps, and a final plate celebrating the peace of 1783).

Modern full green morocco, gilt ruling and decorations to covers, spine gilt

Beautifully coloured contemporary French views of the American Revolution and the first book to name the United States on the title.

This engraved collection is a substantial contemporary European publication illustrating the American Revolution. Published in Paris soon after the peace of 1783, it presents the conflict through French eyes, placing the war for American independence within the wider struggle between Britain, France, Spain, and their allies across North America, the Caribbean, West Africa, and the Mediterranean. Howes notes that this is the first French book to name the United States on the title. The plates move from emblematic revolutionary episodes to decisive military and diplomatic outcomes. They include the tarring and feathering of John Malcolm, the battle of Lexington, Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, French operations at Dominica, Senegal, Grenada, Tobago, and Guadeloupe, Bernardo de Gálvez's capture of Pensacola, and the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. The two maps show the newly independent United States and Canada, and the territorial concessions made by Britain to France and Spain under the peace settlement. The final plate commemorates the Treaty of Versailles of 1783, closing the suite with a visual précis of the diplomatic order that followed the war. Nicolas Ponce, engraver to the Comte d'Artois, and François Godefroy, engraver to the imperial court, produced the collection with contributions from other artists and engravers. The result is a compact visual chronicle of the American Revolution intended for a French audience, combining explanatory text, battle imagery, maps, and allegorical commemoration. Its importance rests both in its immediacy, as a near-contemporary illustrated response to American independence, and in its bibliographical distinction as an early French printed work to give the "Etats Unis de l'Amérique" such prominence on the title.

Cresswell 303-307, 333-342; Howes C576; Sabin 68421; Beinecke Lesse Antilles 359; Winsor V, p. 185n.

Item #43025

Price: $5,250.00

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