Set of 9 lithographs of views and portraits

Beautiful set of 9 lithographs illustrating views, scenes and portraits from drawings made by Louis Choris, official painter of the voyage around the world undertaken at the expense of the count of Romanzoff from 1815 to 1818 on board the Rurik and under the command of the young lieutenant Otto Kotzebue (1787-1846).

Eight are taken from his Voyage pittoresque atour du monde, avec des portraits de sauvages d'Amérique, d'Asie, d'Afrique, et des iles du Grand Ocean... published in Paris in 1822 by Firmin-Didot, and one is taken from his Vues et paysages des régions équinoxiales... published in Paris in 1826 by Paul Renouard as a sequel to the previous one.

Among them, six concern the Sandwich Islands, including 3 portraits: Vue dans les îles Sandwich (pl. XVII of the Voyage pittoresque...) - Isle Ovayhi (pl. 1), Camméamea Roi des îles Sandwich (pl. II), Reine Cahoumanou (pl. III), Taymotou Frère de la Reine Cahoumanou (pl. IV), Bateaux des îles Sandwich (pl. XIII); one is of the Radak Islands Intérieur d’une maison dans les îles Radak (pl. XVI), and two are of the Aleutian Islands Ours marins dans l’île de St Paul (pl. XV) and Intérieur d’une maison dans l’île St Laurent (pl. XVII).

German-Russian draughtsman, painter and explorer Louis Choris (Ludwik York Choris, 1795-1828) made during his three-year voyage around the world a number of faithful drawings and sketches of the various peoples he met, objects, fauna etc., which he showed in Paris. Having shown them in Paris, he was encouraged to publish them.