A fine and unsophisticated set of the exceptionally rare reduced-format atlas

LOEWY, Maurice & PUISEUX, Pierre Henri.

Atlas lunaire; reproduisant à une échelle réduite aux 2/5 les agrandissements photographiques; Atlas photographique de la lune.

Brussels: Société Royale Belge d'Astronomie, de Météorologie et de Physique du Globe, 1899.

1st Edition. No Binding. Near Fine. Item #002122

Fascicule 1-12 (all published). Folio (330 x 250 mm). 2 sheets of text and 71 half-tone prints after photographs by Loewy and Puiseux. Each photographic plate accompanied by a printed overlay, with principal features named and highlighted. 12 fascicles in original green printed wrappers, preserved in clamshell box. Little age-toning to overlays, occasional very minor spotting of plates, most wrappers split at fold ends but holding (split fold of wrapper to fasc. 1 repaired with tape), short closed tear to plate XXXI overlay, wrapper to fasc. 12 creased, with closed tear (residue of former tape) and torn lower corner at fold. An outstanding copy in unusual fine condition and complete as called for. ----

THE RARE REDUCED-FORMAT EDITION, REPRODUCING ALL OF LOEWY AND PUISEUX'S FAMOUS PHOTOGRAPHS at a more portable 2/5 scale, and issued in parts at roughly the same time as the first edition of 1896-1910. Loewy and Puiseux's was the first large-scale photographic atlas of the moon, and "the ultimate achievement of nineteenth-century astronomical photography" (The Photobook). It was only in the 1960s that images substantially better than those of Loewy and Puiseux were obtained (NASA's Lunar Ranger missions). Because perfect weather conditions were needed, the project took 14 years to complete. During this period only 50 or 60 nights per year exhibited the ideal weather conditions, and from those nights only 4 or 5 usable negatives could be produced. Like the large-format edition, this edition comprises 71 plates (The Photobook I, pp. 54-55).
Exceedingly rare (much rarer than the large-size edition) especially as with the original printed wrappers. Copies catalogued on OCLC/WorldCat appear mainly incomplete, with between 35 and 65 plates only. Only 3 libraries could be identified holding complete copies (Paris Observatory, Linda Hall Library, and Univ. Ramon Lull, Spain). One copy only of this edition appear to have come on the market in the past 50 years (bound up, heavily trimmed and lacking most original wrappers as well as the two text leaves; Bonhams sale 2013). - Visit our website to see more images!

Price: 45,000 €  *  convert currency