Forum Rare Books

Instructions for Carsten Niebuhr's expedition to Arabia

MICHAELIS, Johann David. Recueil de questions, proposées à une société de savants, qui par ordre de Sa Majesté Danoise font le voyage de l'Arabie.
Amsterdam, S.J. Baalde; Utrecht, J. van Schoonhoven & comp., 1774. 4to. Set in roman type with incidental Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac and 1 word in Coptic. Near-contemporary tanned sheepskin, gold-tooled spine. [4], XLIV, 256, [16], 38, [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 3,500

Arabian Peninsula & Gulf States Literature North Africa & Egypt Travel & Voyages Middle East

Excellent, attractively coloured large map of the Ottoman Empire at its height

MOLL, Herman. The Turkish empire in Europe, Asia and Africa, divided into all its governments, together with the other territories that are tributary to it, as also the dominions of the Emperor of Marocco.
London, Herman Moll, John Bowles, Thomas Bowles & John King, ca. 1730. A large engraved map in two sheets (61 x 101 cm as assembled) at a scale of about 1:7,100,000, with 3 insets containing 6 topographic and architectural views. Coloured. Full description

€ 8,500

Charts & Maps Turkey & Ottoman Empire

The pinnacle of Coptic church architecture in Egypt:
the churches the Red and White Monastery near Sohag

MONNERET DE VILLARD, Ugo. Les couvents près de Sohâg (Deyr el-Abiad et Deyr el-Ahmar).
Milan, Tipografia Pontif. Arciv. S. Giuseppe, 1925-1926. 2 volumes. 4to. With 222 numbered illustrations on coated paper (photographic half-tone views, and architectural plans reproduced sometimes in line and sometimes in half-tone) bound at the end of each volume, and numerous small line illustrations printed with the text. Contemporary half green cloth, beige paper sides, grey endpapers. 135, [5] pp. Full description

€ 2,500

Archaeology Architecture Art & Art History Church History & Missions North Africa & Egypt

1752 treaty between the Dutch Republic and the Sultan of Morocco

[MOROCCO - TREATY - STATES GENERAL]. Tractaat van vreede en commercie, geslooten tusschen sijne Majesteit den Keiser van Marocco en de ... Staaten Generaal der Vereen. Nederlanden.Including:[drop-title:] Formulier van het pasport ...
[drop-title:] Translaat van de brief van Muley Abdala, Keiser van Marocco, ...
The Hague, Jacobus Scheltus, 1777. Small 4to. With the woodcut arms of the States General on the title-page. Disbound. 26, [2 blank] pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Naval History North Africa & Egypt

1728 treaty between the Dutch Republic and the semi-autonomous state of Tripoli

[NETHERLANDS - STATES GENERAL - TREATY]. Tractaat tusschen haar hoog mog. de Heeren Staten Generaal der Vereenigde Nederlanden, en de regeeringe van Tripoli. Geslooten in het jaar 1728.
The Hague, Jacobus Scheltus II, 1729. 4to. Modern paper-covered boards. 8 pp. Full description

€ 1,250

Netherlands North Africa & Egypt Slavery Turkey & Ottoman Empire

First Dutch edition of Niebuhr's detailed and extensively illustrated description of his travels
in Arabia and surrounding regions

NIEBUHR, Carsten. Reize naar Arabië en andere omliggende landen.
Amsterdam, S.J. Baalde; Utrecht, J. van Schoonhoven & Comp. (vol. 1) and Bartholomeus Wild (vol. 2) (colophons: printed in Utrecht by Johan Joseph Besseling), 1776-1780. 2 volumes. 4to (27.5 x 22 cm). With 2 engraved title-pages, each with the same vignette, 35 maps and plans (9 folding and the large map of Yemen coloured by hand in red and green outlines), 21 views (12 folding) and 69 other illustrations (19 folding) of people, sculptures and examples of ancient script, engraved by C. Philips, Th. and C.H. Koning, C.J. de Huyser, C.F. Fritsch, C. Brouwer and others. Half calf, sprinkled paper sides, gold-tooled spine with a red title label with gold lettering. VIII (I and III blank), [6], 484, [2]; [1], [1 blank], [1], [1 blank], [12], 455, [1] pp. Full description

€ 5,000

Arabian Peninsula & Gulf States Iran / Persia North Africa & Egypt Travel & Voyages Africa Travel & Voyages Asia Travel & Voyages Middle East

Account of the first scientific expedition to the Middle East, Egypt, Persia and India

NIEBUHR, Carsten. Reize naar Arabië en andere omliggende landen.
Amsterdam, S.J. Baalde; Utrecht, J. van Schoonhoven and company (vol. 1) and Bartholomeus Wild (vol. 2) (colophons: Utrecht, printed by J.J. Besseling), 1776-1780. 2 volumes. 4to. With 2 engraved title-pages, each with a vignette, 31 engraved maps and plans and 94 other engraved plates. 19th-century half calf. Untrimmed. VIII, [6], 484, [2]; [16], 455, [1] pp. Full description

€ 6,000

Arabian Peninsula & Gulf States Archaeology Architecture Charts & Maps City Plans, Topography & Views Classical Antiquity India & Sri Lanka Iran / Persia North Africa & Egypt Travel & Voyages Asia Travel & Voyages Middle East Travel & Voyages Southern Asia

From India to Egypt, with 19 hand-coloured plates and 2 maps

NOÉ, Louis Pantaléon Jude Amédée, Comte de. Mémoires relatifs a l'expédition Anglaise partie du Bengale en 1800 pour aller combattre en Égypte l'armée d'orient.
Paris, Imprimerie Royale (back of half-title: [Auguste] Nepveu), 1826. 8vo. With 2 folding lithographed maps, partly coloured by hand, and 19 hand-coloured lithographed plates. Contemporary red half morocco, gold-tooled spine, marbled sides. [3], [1 blank], III, [1 bank], 288 pp. Full description

€ 1,750

Costumes & Uniforms India & Sri Lanka Military History (19th Century) North Africa & Egypt

Shipwrecked Americans as slaves of Islamic hunters and nomads in the western Sahara in 1800

PADDOCK, Judah. A narrative of the shipwreck of the Oswego, on the coast of South Barbary, ...
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown (printed by Andrew Strahan), 1818. 4to. 20th-century tan goatskin morocco. XVI, 372 pp. Full description

€ 1,500

Mutiny, Piracy & Shipwrecks North Africa & Egypt Slavery Travel & Voyages Africa Travel & Voyages Middle East West Africa

Trade in Venetian cloth in early 18th-century Cairo

[AUTOGRAPH]. [PETEA(?)], Michiel. [Letter, signed, to Nicolò Caragiani in Venice concerning the trading conditions in Cairo for different woolen and silk fabrics].
Cairo, 22 October 1732. Manuscript letter in Italian, opening with a duplicate of an earlier letter, in a different hand, dated 26 September 1732, written in ink on one page of a bifolium originally folded 4 more times for sending (to 8.5 x 14 cm) with the address on one side and traces of a red wax on the other. Full description