Deschamps - Voyage pittoresque de la Flandre et du Brabant - 1772

DESCHAMPS, JEAN-BAPTISTE.
Pictorial Voyage of Flanders and Brabant, With Reflections concerning the Arts & some Engravings... Amsterdam: 1772.
Small octavo. Full period marbled calf, spine with gilt raised bands ornamented with fans and scrolls, title piece in morocco leather.
A highly sought edition of this pioneer guide to the history of art and cultural tourism in Northern Europe, composed by the painter and critic Jean-Baptiste Deschamps (founder of the Rouen Free Drawing School). The author provides a methodical and critical inventory of the masterpieces of painting and sculpture preserved in the churches, monasteries, and private collections of the great Flemish and Brabantine towns (Lille, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges...).
Beyond its usefulness as a travel guide for eighteenth-century enthusiasts, the work is enriched with biographical notices devoted to the foremost masters of the Flemish school, notably Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Gaspard de Crayer. The introductory section offers a “Curious and easy method for the knowledge of paintings and sculptures,” opening with a patrimonial description of Lille and its religious buildings.
Period full calf binding, solid though showing wear and handling at the edges and corners; spine joints rubbed and light losses at the headcaps, but the binding remains sound. The gilding on the spine remains legible with its title piece. Clean and fresh interior on antique laid paper, title in two colors (red and black) with a striking visual effect.
When it appeared in 1769 (and then reissued in Amsterdam in 1772), this Pictorial Voyage served as a travel companion for the aristocrats undertaking their Grand Tour in Northern Europe. But a few decades later, it took on a completely unexpected historical role. During the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic invasions, dozens of churches and abbeys described by Deschamps in Flanders and Brabant were pillaged, dismantled, or destroyed (as with the ancient Church of Saint-Etienne in Lille, mentioned at the beginning of the text, destroyed by the siege of 1792). Art historians of the nineteenth century and the conservators of the Louvre used this very book as an investigative record to trace the provenance of Rubens’ and Van Dyck’s paintings confiscated and dispersed across Europe!"