VERNET (Horace) & LAMI (Eugène). Collection des uniforme - Lot 77

VERNET (Horace) & LAMI (Eugène). Collection des uniformes des armées françaises de 1791 à 1814. [And] Collection raisonnée des uniformes français de 1814 à 1824. Paris, Gide, 1822 ; Anselin & Pochard, 1825. Two volumes in-4 (273 x 184 mm), 2 ff. n.c., XV pp., 94 ff. n.c. (except for the Armée de Condé, paginated 1-12); 2 ff. n.c., 6 pp., 38 n.c., red half-maroquin with corners, spine ribbed, title, tomaison and date gilt, gilt head, untrimmed (binding from the second half of the 19th century). These two collections include 148 lithographed and colored uniform plates on lightly tinted wove paper, drawn by Horace Vernet and Eugène Lami. Among the least common are those of the king's constitutional guard, the hussars of death, the army of the East, the Corsican legion, the colonial battalions, the Hohenlohe regiment, etc. The plates, preserved at full margins, are slightly larger than the accompanying explanatory leaflets. "Among the most interesting collections of those relating to the French army" (Colas). "Lami et Vernet's work is unquestionably one of the finest ever produced on the French army. It is documentary for the second part, and even for the costumes of the First Empire it can be consulted with confidence" (Glasser). The copy includes a business card from Colonel Akermann, head of the Paris Gendarmerie Legion, and an autograph letter signed by Louis de Virsay. Some foxing, marginal wormholes on about ten pp. of vol. I, but otherwise good copies in uniform binding. (Brunet, V, col. 1144; Vicaire, Il, col. 909; Colas, n° 2987-2989; Glasser, pp. 253-257).