with Royal provenance

The second authorised edition of Stackelberg's beautifully illustrated work, but the first in German, published in Germany, where he lived from 1829-1833. It had first appeared in 1825 in Rome, and this edition is Stackelberg's response to the pirated editions which had begun to appear after the Rome edition. This is the only edition to contain his text and an extra plate (no. 30, Femme de Missolonghi). This is part one of an intended two-part work; the second part, the 'Gebräuche' or 'Usages', was started in 1935 but was unfinished at the time of Stackelberg's death in 1837.

Stackelberg published a number of works on both ancient and modern Greece, having travelled in the area from 1810 to 1814. 'He was in Athens with Byron and travelled and worked with [Charles] Cockerell, [Carl] Haller von Hallerstein, [Georg] Gropius, [Jacob] Linckh and [John] Foster on various archaeological excavations, particularly at Bassae' (Bobins I, p.159).

From the library of Queen Victoria's uncle, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland who, as the firth son of George III, became King of Hanover in 1837 on the death of his brother William IV. Since Salic law prevented women from inheriting the throne of Hanover, Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom, but the kingdom of Hanover went to her Uncle.

First German edition; folio (37.3 x 25 cm); hand-coloured engraved frontispiece, 30 hand-coloured engraved plates numbered 1-30, captioned in French and German, minor spotting to prelims, else unmarked internally; original blue boards, split to lower joint, some spotting and staining to covers; housed in card chemise within brown cloth slipcase, green morocco spine tooled in gilt.

Blackmer 1591; Droulia 1956.