Dictionaire de marine

First edition.

Full marbled calf binding, spine with five raised bands and decorated rolls, red morocco title label, boards ruled in blind, marbled paper pastedowns and endpapers, a slight dampstain to corner of first few leaves, a tear to first folding plate and one of the ensign plates not affecting either illustration. 

With a frontispiece by Lamsveld and 31 superb plates all hand-colored except the last two of the ensigns, numerous woodcuts throughout.

Rare first edition of this naval dictionary, the first in France to contain a definition of the yacht (exh. cat. Loisirs sur l'eau : histoire de la plaisance en France 1640–1940). The full-page plates are finely heightened in colours and include ten different vessel types, navigational instruments, diagrams, naval ensigns, details of fastenings and construction, and a handsome plate with the arms of the dedicatee.

Nicolas Aubin compiled this Dutch-inspired dictionary during his exile in the Netherlands following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The expertise of Dutch naval construction, benchmark model of the seventeenth century, was thus made available to French sailors and shipbuilders. Each entry provides several Dutch translations, followed by a detailed definition supported by specific examples. As Michel Daeffler observes,

"Through the thorough definitions and the information provided by the numerous construction estimates published in this work, Aubin's Dictionaire [sic] de marine is a major source for the study and understanding of European navies at the close of the seventeenth century."

Although Aubin draws on the dictionaries of Nicolaes Witsen (1671) and Cornelis Van Yk (1671), this publication brings new refinement to the illustrations and adds depictions of measuring instruments. Considerably greater space is given to vexillology, with twelve plates illustrating 48 flying ensigns, of which 40 are delicately colored in the present copy. Van Yk's dictionary contained none while Witsen included only two plates, their flags depicted without dimensional rendering. Alongside the numerous woodcut vignettes throughout the text, the hand-colored plates include representations of navigational instruments (quarter-circle of ninety degrees, equinoctial compass, cross-staff, compass and variation compass, equinoctial compass and compass of proportion, nocturnal and mirrored cross-staff), various vessel types (Spanish bark, boyer, fireship also known as a navire sorcier, herring buss, cague, Dutch fluyt, Dutch hooker, Dutch semale, yacht), and finely colored ship parts (the stern of a vessel bearing the arms of the city of Amsterdam, a ship's beakhead with a handsome figurehead).

A scarce hand-colored copy of this indispensable linguistic and technical reference for sailors.

Ownership inscription "Novel" on front free endpaper. 

Craig, A Bibliography of Encyclopedias and Dictionaries Dealing with Military, Naval and Maritime Affairs, p. 4.