BERBRUGGER (Louis Adrien). Lot n° 20

Algérie historique, pittoresque et monumentale, ou recueil de vues, costumes et portraits faits d'après nature dans les provinces d'Alger, Bone, Constantine et Oran. Dedicated to the King. Lithographs by Bour, Genet, Bayot, Courtin and Colligon. Paris, Delahaye, 1843. 5 parts bound in 2 vol. in-folio; half green basane, spine ribbed and decorated (period binding). Rubbed and worn, light damp stains to edges of boards. Volume 1 (text): First part: Province of Algiers. xiv pp., 2 ff. 80 pp. Part 2: Province of Oran. 68 pp. Part Three: Province of Bone. 1 f., 20 pp. Part Four: Province of Constantine. 1 f., 42 pp. Part Five: Algerian breeds, coins, flora of Algeria. 1 f., 21-18-16 pp. 1 f. (table). Volume 2 (plates): Color lithographed frontispiece, 2 maps, 1 portrait, 1 frontispiece and 131 plates (including the 10 color botanical plates in fine). Some plates browned, minor foxing in places, very small amount of gnawing (moisture) in margins of first few plates; old (narrow) moisture stains with small amount of gnawing in first few ff., in outer margin of text. First edition of this important and superb work, the finest ever devoted to Algeria. Very rare work, printed in only 500 copies, and almost never found complete (Brunet, I, 782.) Adrien Berbrugger (1801-1869) was Marshal Clauzel's private secretary in Algeria. He collected Arabic manuscripts that formed the initial nucleus of the Bibliothèque d'Alger, of which he became the first curator, as well as the Musée. He was also the founder of the Algerian Historical Society. He provided a remarkable iconography of Algeria, dealing more with the Algerian people than with the conquests, as was the case with most of the works published at the time.