Pieter de Marees (fl. 1602)
Description et recit historial du riche Royaume d'or de Gunea, aultrement nommé, la coste de l'or de Mina. Amsterdam: C. Claesson, 1605.
Rare first French edition of a highly important description of the Gold Coast of West Africa; RBH/ABPC record just two copies at auction. Originally published in Dutch in 1602, it contains an account of the Guinea coast in fifty chapters illustrated with finely engraved plates, and includes a dictionary of French words and phrases converted into the indigenous language. Subjects of the chapters and illustrations include rituals and ceremonies, warfare, transportation, plant and animal life, dress, ornamentation, and dance. ‘What he saw there, in terms of choreographic splendor, extended by corresponding richness of bodily adornment and dress, greatly impressed him and impresses the reader today’ (Robert Farris Thompson, African Art in Motion (1974). Alden, European Americana, 605/73.

Folio (330 x 218mm). Title with engraved vignette duplicating plate no.19, 21 engraved plates in the text (some faint marginal stains, light browning, most plates just trimmed at fore-edge, small rust hole in E3 affecting a few letters). Modern limp vellum.

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