Beschreibung
"ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND INTRIGUING BOTANICAL BOOKS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. INDISPUTABLY ONE OF THE RAREST" [Vienna: 1780-1781.] Second edition, expanded, with the plates replaced by watercolors. Folio (18 3/16" x 12 7/16", 467mm x 316mm). [Full collation available.] With a watercolor, gouache, ink and graphite title-page and 264 watercolor illustrations, of which 2 are folding and the final 6 with additional ink manuscript. Bound in contemporary diced russia (re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down) by Christian Kalthoeber (with his ticket to the verso of the front free end-paper). Wide gilt rolls to the boards, including tau-mæanders, scrollwork and pineapple corner ornaments. One the spine, six pairs of raised bands. Author and title gilt to the second panel: "JACQUIN'S/ AMERICAN/ PLANTS". The panels with a pointillé lobed compartment within scrollwork. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text block gilt, concealing marbling. Celadon silk marking ribbon (laid in). Re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down. Some scuffing, particularly to the front. Without the printed half-title (as with all examples of this setting of the text). Stub-tear to pl. 215 (folding). Titling in graphite to some of the early watercolors. Odd spots or very small patches of soiling, but altogether a near-fine example. Binder's ticket of Christian Kalthoeber to the verso of the front paste-down, along with a few shelf-marks in graphite manuscript. Price ("£42. 0. 0") in graphite manuscript to the recto of the second free end-paper. Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727-1817), at the request of Francis I the Holy Roman Emperor, traveled through the West Indies, collecting specimens for the Schönbrunn Palace (which Alexander von Humboldt studied in preparation for his America trip). Jacquin was a committed correspondent with Carl Linnaeus; initially, as here, he is pure pupil and admirer; with time, he would come to debate the master botanist. The first edition of his "history of certain American plants" (1763) is a landmark in the description of American species. Jacquin here gave the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) -- now one of the world's most important and valuable crops -- its current binomial name for the first time. Some 15 years later, established as professor of botany and chemistry at the University of Vienna, Jacquin set out to create a de luxe reissue, with (nearly) identical text but 80 additional images of the plants, bringing the number from 184 to 264. Most unusually, however, he chose not to have the plates reprinted and new copper cut, but to replace all the plates with watercolors. Scholars -- and here Santiago Madriñán's 2013 Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin's American Plants is indispensable -- estimate the total print run of this second edition between 18 and 25 examples (but is in fact in excess of 36). Thus, it can safely be assumed, the work was carried out by a small and trusted circle of painters in Vienna working under Jacquin's supervision. Mills, in the introduction to the 2016 Folio Society facsimile of the example held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, crowns it "one of the most beautiful and intriguing books of the eighteenth century. [and] indisputably one of the rarest" (p. 10). The volume passed through the workshop of the distinguished German-born binder Christian Kalthoeber, who set up shop in London as an apprentice to Johann Ernst Baumgarten. Kalthoeber was one of the most sought-after binders, famously being invited by Catherine the Great to St. Petersburg. Ex-coll. George Hibbert (1757-1837) and Beriah Botfield (1807-1863). His library was sold by Christie's London 20 March 1994, in which the present item was lot 70. Dunthorne 152; Nissen, BBI 980; Pritzel 4363; Stafleu-Cowan 3249; Stearn, Great Flower Books p. 105. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers JLR0601
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