fine lithographic views including Hong Kong, Macao & Canton

Borget's fine lithographic views of China, including five of Hong-Kong, and others relating to Macao and Canton.

The plates are remarkable for the lack of that 'feeling of superiority of the Chinese, so characteristic of accounts from the 1840s. The artist observes with a fresh eye' (Lust). An important and early record of the landscape and people of Hong Kong, Macao, and Canton. Borget, who was a pupil of Jean-Antoine Gudin and a close friend of Honoré de Balzac, journeyed around the world in 1836, travelling through South America and Hawaii before reaching the China coast in August 1838. In the autumn of 1838, fellow artist William Prinsep went sketching with Borget in Macao, remarking that he found the Frenchman's portfolio 'rich with scenes from South America, Sandwich Islands and China, and he was a pleasant fellow into the bargain.' He continued his circumnavigation in July 1839 with a visit to Manila and then sailed for India via Singapore and the Straits of Malacca, eventually returning to Paris in the summer of 1840.

First London edition; folio; additional pictorial lithograph title dated 1842, 32 tinted lithograph views on 25 sheets by Eugene Ciceri after Borget, list of plates and 11 pages of descriptive letterpress, marginal light spotting, publisher's moiré fine ribbed cloth, rebacked brown morocco, a very good copy.

Abbey (Travel), 540; Cordier I, 79-80; Lust 211.