[HANDCOLOURED COLOR ENGRAVING] A Turkish woman, in a provincial dress. Plate 4.= Une femme Turque, en habit de province. Planche quatrieme. Drawn by Octavien Dalvimart.

London: William Miller, 1802. Soft cover. Very Good. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. 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. "No dress can possibly be better calculated to conceal the person, than that worn by the Turkish females, both in Constantinople and the country, whenever appear abroad. No woman is ever seen without her maharmah, which is generally formed of muslin; one part of which fastens under the chin, and encloses the head, the other crosses the mouth and nose, and admits only space enough to see from. They also constantly wear a feredje, which entirely envelops their whole person". = "Il n'est pas d'habillemet mieux invente pour se cacher, que celui que portent les femmes Turques, lorsqu'elles proîssen dans les rues de Constantinople, ou dans le campagne. On ne vot jamais de femme sans son maharmah, qui est ordinairement fait de mousseline. Une partie s'aatche sous le menton, et enveloppe le tête; l'autre traverse la bouche et le nez, et laisse a peine assez d'espace pour y voir. Elles portent aussi un feredje, dont elles s'enveloppent entierement".