1. Polycarpea

Magnificent elephant folio size engraving from, Description de L’Egypte, the account of Napolean’s military and scientific expedition to Egypt in 1798, published 1809-1822. This was a monumental work and now very rare.

On Napoleon’s return from his Egypt campaign in 1798 he ordered the Imperial Press in 1802 to begin publication of the cultural and scientific discoveries. The expedition had included 167 scholars, that included 21 mathematicians, 3 astronomers, 17 civil engineers, 13 naturalists and mining engineers. It took almost twenty years to complete the 837 copper engravings which contained over 3,000 illustrations. The botanist Alire Raffeneau-Delile (1778-1850) participated in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egypt Campaign where he described the Lotus and Papyrus. He became th Director of the Cairo botanical garden and wrote the botanical sections of Travel in Lower and Upper Egypt by Dominique Vivant. He made a cast of the Rosetta Stone which allowed the reproduction of its Greek and Demotic inscriptions in his Description de l’Egypte.