(CHOISEUL-GOUFFIER Comte de). Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce. Paris, Blaise, 1782; folio (535 x 355 mm), green half-maroquin, smooth spine decorated with gilt vases and fishnets, pink sponge paper boards framed with a gilt garland, entirely untrimmed (Period binding). Engraved title, 12 very large fleurons and lamp-heads, 126 figures, views, costumes, picturesque scenes, maps on 100 plates. FIRST EDITION. Fascinated by Antiquity from his adolescence, the young Choiseul-Gouffier (1754-1817) left for Greece in 1776, accompanied by the painter Jean-Baptiste Hilaire. They visited the southern Peloponnese, the Cyclades, the islands of the Aegean Sea and then Asia Minor, drawing and commenting on the magnificent views, sites and temples that bore witness to the grandeur of ancient Greece. Back in France, Choiseul-Gouffier published this luxurious work, a superb tribute to Antiquity, which was warmly received and earned him the highest honours (Académie des Inscriptions in 1779, Académie Française in 1784). Immediately, he planned a sequel. Appointed two years later to the French embassy in Constantinople, he enlisted a team of scholars and Hellenists to prepare the second volume - but various events and the Revolution delayed the project. The sequel was not published until 1809, in installments that lasted until 1824... after the author's death in 1817. Our copy contains only the volume published in 1782 but not the sequel published 27 years later. A RARE FIRST ISSUE COPY with the error corrected on the plate of the Turkish Tournament and the first Preliminary Discourse in 16 pp. an enthusiastic manifesto in favour of the independence of Greece crushed by the Turkish oppressor. But by the time the young diplomat was applying for the post of ambassador to the Sublime Porte, this stance was no longer appropriate. Choiseul-Gouffier had all copies containing this text withdrawn from sale and replaced it with a more neutral 12-page preface. VERY ATTRACTIVE CONTEMPORARY BINDING IN GREEN HALF-MAROQUIN WITH PINK PAPER BOARDS FRAMED WITH LACE. Marginal staining at the top of 10 plates. Margin of one plate torn and reinforced.