La Perspective du Mokkias, par debors, a la pointe de lsle de Rodda, Plate XXIII, from 'Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie', 1755.

Engraving. 28 x 45 cm (sheet). Good, light foxing, staining along sheet edges, small binding holes along sheet edge.Norden's splendid record of the 1737-38 Danish expedition up the Nile fromCairo to Aswan. The plates show the pyramids, ancient monuments and temples(including the first depiction of the Nubian Temple of Derr), obelisks, andhieroglyphics, as well as scenes of contemporary life in Cairo and along theancient river?The engravings are today a valuable source of information on the state of theantiquities in the eighteenth century, due to Norden's eye for detail and devotionto realism. For example, Norden was the first artist to portray the Great Sphinx ofGiza as lacking its nose; prior artists, perhaps wishing to show the face as itmight have appeared in ancient times, reworked the enormous face imaginativelyby attaching an imperious Roman feature. As indicated by the text, Norden(1708-1742) was dispatched by Danish King Christian VI in 1737 to undertake anexpedition that had "the design of enriching the learned world."?? Theexpedition arrived at the port of Alexandria in June of that year, travelled on toCairo by camel, and then by boat up the Nile to Aswan in Nubia, going further upthat river than any previous European explorers. Norden meticulously recorded both the route and the sights from the modern city of Alexandria to the ancienttemples in Derr, Luxor, and Karnak, from the antiquities of a great civilization tocontemporary ploughs and hydraulics. According to ODNB, "Sixty years before[Napoleon I's] expedition to Egypt, Norden had made excellent maps, precisedescriptions, detailed topographical drawings, and panoramas of the landscapeand monuments of Egypt. His drawings and comments on contemporary Egypt,its government, and peoples, also supply valuable historic and ethnographicinformation". Plagued with health problems, Norden began preparing hissketches and maps for publication as soon as he returned to Copenhagen in1738. Before his death from tuberculosis in 1742, he made arrangements for theNuremberg engraver Carl Marcus Tuscher to execute the plates under thedirection of the Danish Royal Navy, a task that took the engraver sevenyears?REFERENCES: Weber II, 519; Brunet IV, 101; Graesse IV, 686.The Danish Naval Captain and explorer, Frederick Norden sailed to Egypt in 1737-38 to surveyed the architecture, agriculture, and other curiosities of the country. Hewas the first European to penetrate as far as Derr in Nubia, and produced the firstcoherent maps of the country. Seventeen years later, long after Norden's death, hismaps and drawings were published by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences andLetters, under order of Frederick V of Denmark, as Voyage d'Egypte et de Nubie(1755). Two years later, the physician and naturalist Peter Templeman completedan English translation, which was published in two folio volume.…