Mayer, Luigi (1755-1803) Views in Egypt, from the Original in the Possession of Sir Robert Ainslie, Taken during his Embassy to Constantinople.
London: Thomas Bensley for R. Bowyer, 1801.
First edition, folio, illustrated with forty-eight full-paged hand-colored aquatint plates; text printed on wove paper with Edmeads & Co., E & P, and J. Whatman watermarks dated 1801 and 1794; bound in full contemporary plain russia leather with gilt board ruling by the workshop of Auguste-Marie de Caumont (1743-1839) with his Frith Street Soho, London label; bound between 1803 and 1814; neatly rebacked with gilt tooled and lettered spine; corners worn and abraded with some losses, waterstain to spine affecting bottom of front board, and one corner of back board; water stains to front and back- endleaves, fainter at the foot of adjacent leaves, some tissue guards foxed; contemporary British armorial bookplate inside front board, possibly the Earl of Abergavenny (Nevill), 18 x 12 3/4 in.
The fine illustrations in this volume include the great pyramids and the Sphinx, and costume plates of people from different regions and classes, including Bedouin and Egyptian families, dancing girls, and a striking image of a Mamluk soldier on horseback. The Mamluks were a powerful military class of knights who were originally enslaved mercenaries serving under Arab rulers. They went on to take control over territories in Egypt and Syria and ruled these regions under a Mamluk Sultanate for centuries. Other subjects depicted in the plates include mosques, Egyptian antiquities, seascapes, and other notable landmarks.
