Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. &c. During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820. (First Edition, 2 Volumes)

London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brows, 1821. 2 volume set. FIRST EDITION. Signed binding. Early to Mid-twentieth century three quarter brown calf leather binding signed by J. Larkins. Compartmented, raised bands, tooled leather on spine. Illustrated with two hand-colored portrait frontispieces mounted on paper, 87 plates (some folding), including 5 hand-colored plates, and 2 large folding maps, the plates executed in different media, i. e., aquatint, line-engravings, stipple engravings and numbered I-LXXXVII (lacking plate LXXXIII) with 1 plate unnumbered, light occasional foxing and offsetting, corners bumped, top edges gilt others uncut, an attractive copy. Lacks plate list in volume I as is not uncommon. One of the most substantial books on Persia. Photos available upon request. Sir Robert Ker Porter (1777-1842) had been a court painter in St. Petersburg, and archaeological investigation and drawing were the principal reasons for the author's travels. In this copy the famous portrait of Fath Ali Shah is colored, in most copies it is not. One of Porter's aims was to correct errors in the drawings of earlier travellers such as Chardin and Le Bruyn. From Russia Porter travelled to Tabriz where he met Abbas Mirza with whom he spent a considerable time. He went on to Tehran with Abbas Mirza before going to Esfahan, Persepolis, and Shiraz. In Tehran he had an audience with Fath Ali Shah, with whom he was very impressed. "An intelligent and readable book." One of the greatest mines of information concerning the life and manners of the people of Western Asia at the beginning of the last century, and also with regard to the monuments, inscriptions, and other antiquities then known to exist in Persia and Babylonia, is the magnificent work of Sir Robert Ker Porter," Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, etc., etc., during the years 1817-20," (Two volumes, London, 1821, 1822) equally remarkable for the "truth in what the author relates," and the "fidelity in what he copies" and illustrates by his numerous drawings, portraits, and sketches. From childhood loving and practising the arts, he had become a famous painter of international reputation, whose eminent talents, striking personality, and final marriage with a Russian princess had secured for him a social standing which enabled him, by his pen and brush, to reach circles hitherto but little influenced by the books of ordinary travellers and the scientific and often dry investigations of men of the type of Otter, Niebuhr, Beauchamp, and Rich. In his popularization of a subject which so far had stirred the minds of only a limited class of people, and in appealing, by his religious sentiment, the manner of his style, and the accurate representation of what he had observed, not less to the men of science and religion than to the aristocratic circles of Europe, on whose interest and financial support the resurrection of Assyria and Babylonia chiefly depended, lies the significance of Ker Porter as a Babylonian explorer. After extensive travels through Georgia and Persia, in the course of which the great monuments of Naqs-i-Rustam and Persepolis had received his special attention. . Signed by Binder. First Edition. Half Calf Leather. Near Fine. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. Hardcover.