Moeurs, Usages et Costumes de Tous les Peuples du Monde

First edition of this scarce and beautiful work on the costumes of the world.

Written and compiled in four volumes by Auguste Wahlen, pseudonym for Jean Françios Nicolas Loumyer

With 196 vibrantly hand-coloured plates, most heightened with gum arabic, and four handcoloured vignette title pages.

Text in French.

Loumyer completed his comprehensive survey of world culture and costume with the collaboration of Jacques Joseph van Beveren. The woodcuts were engraved by Doms, Duverger, Lisbet, Markaert, Mercier and others after illustrations from famous explorers on their voyages.

With 196 plates (of 186 plates as called for in the plate list) and four title vignettes. Volume I: Asia is complete with all 79 of 79 plates called for in the plate list; Volume II Africa and America has 39 of 39 (two plates never issued, but two supplemental plates included); Volume III Europe has 41 of 34 (missing Jeune fille de Porto, but including eight supplemental plates), and Volume IV Oceania has 37 of 34 plates. One plate, the Iman, is duplicated in Volume I and III. The total number of plates is notoriously fickle, and varies between 180 to 208 as subscribers were able to obtain supplemental plates, some plates were never issued and others supplied in duplicate.

Jean Françios Nicolas Loumyer (1801-1875) was an archivist at the Belgian Department of Heraldry. He published a guide to Greek and Latin under his own name in 1840, and used the pen name Auguste Wahlen to publish several volumes including this study of world costume (1843), and a study of the orders of chivalry, Histoire, costumes et decorations de tous les Ordres de chevalerie (1844).

Half leather bindings with gilt titles, leather on the spines of all four volumes chipping and cracking, red marbled boards rubbed and scuffed at corners. Hinges cracking on two volumes, with boards connected by cords only. All text and plates with slight toning and foxing as usual, but most plates clean with vibrant hand-colour and gum arabic, some highlighted with gold, under pink tissue guards.