Early Printed Books, Manuscripts and Decorative Prints
LEGER, Charles. Redouté et son temps
Editions de la Galerie Charpentier, 1945.
£250
LIMITED EDITION of 980 (this is copy 972). Folio, pp. 170, 12 final hand-coloured plates, with numerous coloured facsimile plates and illustrations throughout, both coloured and b/w. Half title with poem by Anacreon within coloured garland of flowers on verso and engraved frontispiece portrait on verso of title page. Bound in blue buckram, gilt spine. A few negligible signs of wear. A fine copy.
SCHABOL, Roger. Dictionnaire pour la Théorie et la Pratique du Jardinage et de l’Agriculture, par Principes, et démontrées d’après la Physique des Végétaux.
Paris, Chez Debure Pere, 1770.
£1,500
8vo, pp. lxxx, 528; engraved frontispiece, 18 engraved plates at the end (8 folding) and occasional illustrations throughout the text. Plate 13 with lower half cut out, which was seemingly illustrated, for traces of printing are visible (plate 14 looks similar as to the image setting, although the lower half is blank). Small vignette on title page, head and tail pieces. Bound in original decorated wrappers, paper label to spine with ink title. Label and wrapper on spine deteriorated, showing sewing on four stations of single supports. Untrimmed, with deckled edges. A fine copy, complete, in its original wrappers, with frontispiece and all the 18 plates here present, which often are lacking.
The abbot Jean-Roger Shabol (1690-1768) was a passionate French gardener and horticulturalist, who is renown for his significant contribution to the field. His dictionary of gardening was first published in Paris in 1767. He introduced it with a “Speech on gardening”, which describes the functions of the air, the parts of plants, seeds and sap. The present copy is the second edition of this lovely work, published posthumously, which includes descriptions of garden features, methods of cultivation, horticultural implements and stages of growth in fruit, flower and tree.
SITWELL, Scheverell [with] Wilfred BLUNT. Great Flower Books, 1700-1900. A Bibliographical Record of Two Centuries of Finely-Illustrated Flower Books
London, Collins, 1956.
£1000
FIRST EDITION, No. 10 of 295 copies numbered and signed by the authors. Full-page frontispiece, 19 full-page colour plates printed in 8-colours, 16 b/ w collotype plates, and numerous illustrations in the text. An outstanding work. The most beautiful and comprehensive bibliography of flower books, showing over 750 books. Bound in half green morocco and marbled paper over thick boards. Gilt-stamped title to spine. Spine slightly faded, plates with tissue guards, and text unsullied; with original morocco-tipped slipcase, a little worn. A fine copy in a deluxe edition.
DE SIEBOLD, Ph. Fr. [with] DE VRIESE, W. H., (Eds) Annales d’horticulture et de botanique, ou Flores des jardins du Royaume des Pays-Bas, et Historie des plantes cultuvées les plus intéressantes des possessions néerlandaises aux Indes Orientales, et Amérique et du Japon (II-IV)
Leiden, A. W. Sijthoff, 1859-62.
£650
Royal 8vo, 4 volumes in 2, missing vol. 1. 49 plates, most of them hand-coloured. Title-pages of second and fourth volume autographed. Vol. II: pp. 1-192, 4 hand-coloured double plates, 1 uncoloured double plate (browned), 8 hand-coloured single plates, 1 uncoloured single plate (foxed); Vol. III: pp. 1-195, 5 hand-coloured double plates, 7 hand-coloured single plates, 1 uncoloured plate; Vol. IV: pp. 1-192, 1 hand-coloured double plate, 10 hand-coloured single plates, 1 uncoloured plate; Vol. V: pp. 1-196, 10 hand-coloured single plates, 2 uncoloured plates (1 single, 1 folding). Preserving the original wrappers with titles, bound in later half blue cloth and marbled paper over boards, green morocco labels with gilt-tooled titles and decorative gilt rolls to head and foot of spines. Bookbinder’s label “Boekbinderij J.V. Welzen Jz, Leiden” on left pastedown.
GALLESIO, Giorgio. Pomona Italiana, ossia trattato degli alberi fruttiferi
Pisa, Co’ Caratteri de’ FF. Amoretti, 1817-1839., 1839.
£1850
FIRST EDITION. Folio. Issues from 1 to 38 (of 41). All the stipple-engraved plates are missing (printed in colour and finished by hand, including one double-page, 2 full-page engraved plates by Giuseppe Pera, Giuseppe Carocci, Tommaso Nasi, Francesco Corsi and others, after Domenico del Pino, Antonio Serantoni, Isabella Bozzolini and others). One of the five copies, or sets of fascicules bound in original wrappers, ordered by Lord Bristol. Lord Bristol was one of the subscribers to this magnificent work. As visible from the dedication handwritten in pen on each volume, this copy was a present for Thomas Andrew Knight (1759-1838), the well-known horticulturalist and botanist, who was also the second President of the Royal Horticultural Society.
THE FINEST ITALIAN WORK ON FRUITS. As well as being a dedicated botanist, Gallesio was an esteemed lawyer and civil servant. He is famous for conducting experiments in his orchards at Savona, which were later reference by Charles Darwin to illustrate his theory of natural selection in the development of varieties.
Dunthorne 118: “a very fine work”; Great Flower Books pp. 92-95; Oak Spring Pomona 52; Nissen BBI 683.
WRIGHT, John. The Fruit Grower’s Guide
London, J. S. Virtue & Co., [1890]
£1,350
FIRST EDITION. 4to, 3 Vols bound in 6 parts; with illustrations by Miss Mary Rivers and numerous diagrams by Worthinton G. Smith and George Shayler. 43 coloured chromolithograph plates with tissue guards, 3 illustrated title-pages, text with several engravings, and final publishers adverts. Bound in an attractive original publishers decorative binding with black-embossed tooling on green buckram, and gilt titles to spines. A.e.g.
A fine and complete set.
TOURNEFORT, Joseph Pitton. Institutiones Rei Herbariae
Paris, E Typographia Regia, 1700.
£1,500
FIRST EDITION. 4to, 2 volumes (of 3). First vol. containing text; second vol. containing 250 stunning botanical plates. Roman and Italic letter, sporadic Greek. Vignette on t-p of first vol. and autograph of early owner, second vol. with engraved title; beautiful engraved headpieces, and historiated and floriated initials. Bookplate of “Philip Carteret, Esq.”, of the Royal Navy, on left pastedowns. Fore-edge sprinkled in red, bound in mottled brown calf over thick boards; covers blind-ruled along edges with double fillet, central panels with outer angular fleurons. Gilt cover edges. Six decorated compartments divided by raised bands to gilt spine with title on red morocco label. Overall in excellent condition, text fresh, clean and crisp. Very clean engraved plates, without staining.
Nissen, BBI 1977. Pritzel 9427. Graesse VII, 180.
MILLER, Philip. The Gardeners Kalendar; Directing the necessary Works to be done Every Month in the Kitchen, Fruit, and Pleasure-Gardens, as also in the Conservatory and Nursery
London, Printed for John and Francis Rivington, 1775.
£150
12mo, pp. xlvi (2) 249 (23), 5 folding botanical plates; lacking frontispiece. Head- and tail-pieces. Roman letter, some Italic. Ink-stamped owner’s name on title-page: “J. Greenfill”. Contemporary calf over boards, recently rebacked, gilt title tooled on spine. Corners a little worn. An excellent copy.
A lovely copy, expertly rebacked. The sixteenth edition of Miller’s most popular work, first printed in 1731.
Henrey, 1144.
SOWERBY, John E. [with] PIERPONT JOHNSON, Charles. British Wild Flowers
London, John E. Sowerby, 1860.
£300
FIRST EDITION. 8vo. Frontispiece and 80 full-page plates hand-coloured, with 1600 different plants; 2 b/w plates. Illustrated by Sowerby; notes and introduction by Pierpoint Johnson. Dedication on recto of left endpaper: “R. F. Meysey Thompson / from / Aunt Emmie / (Emily Frances Thompson) / 6 Oct. 1884”. Insert headed paper slip, “Buckden House, Skipton-in-Craven, Yorshire”, dated “Augt. 23 1902”, with message for Mrs Meysey-Thompson by …. Heavily annotated throughout with scientific observations written in a neat hand at the very beginning of the twentieth century by early owner. Occasional newspaper cuttings of articles glued to blank sections, and dried plant specimens between pages. Contemporary half green morocco over marbled boards, marbled edges. Spine gilt in compartments. A little rubbed, joints slightly cracking. Very light spotting, plates clean and bright.
GERARD, John. The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes. Gathered by Iohn Gerarde of London Master in Chirurgerie, Very much Enlarged and Amended by Thomas Iohnson Citizen and Apothecarye of London
London, Adam Islip Norton and Richard Whitakers, 1633.
£3,000
Folio. Title-page, pp. (xxxvi) 1630 (xliv, i.e., 44 out of 48 original pages); missing initial blank and final blank (as usual) and two leaves at the end: 6z6 (from the “Table of English Names”, supplied with two leaves written in a late C18th or early 19th hand), 7b5 (the final leaf with errata). Engraved title-page laid down, lower outer corner torn, affecting the illustration only marginally. Mainly Roman and Italic letter, little Greek and Gothic, very sporadic Hebrew. Head- and tail-pieces, decorated initials (both historiated and floriated). More than 2500 beautiful and accurate botanical illustrations. Early owner’s autograph on verso of second leaf “Wilfrid Browne”. A few extensive tears without loss: 2×6, 3h3 (extensive), 3m6 (extensive but repaired with paper reinforces) and 5e3. Occasional ink spotting and candle burnings throughout, occasional age yellowing and wear to margins, otherwise in very good condition. A thoroughly used book that has remained surprisingly clean and functional. Rebound in modern brown skin over boards; spine in five compartments divided by double sewing support, with gilt-stamped title. Notwithstanding some flaws, a good copy of an important work in the history of botany.
Second edition, perhaps the best and most complete of all. A beautifully and fully engraved title-page by John Payne. This is Johnson’s enlarged version of the botanist’s major work, first published in 1597. The London apothecary Thomas Johnson (c.1595-1644) revised the original work, making it possible to distinguish his additions. This edition brought a new and more scholarly focus to Gerard’s Herball. Indeed, it was greatly esteemed and reprinted in 1636. It is extensively illustrated and Johnson drew several of the diagrams himself. The woodcuts included in the first edition were printed from wood-blocks obtained from Frankfurt, which had been used to illustrate the “Eicones plantarum” of Taberaemmontanus (1590). Johnson supplemented these with superior illustrations from the stock of Antwerp’s famous printer Plantin. “Gerard contributed greatly towards the advancement of the knowledge of plants in England, and in his Herball he described and illustrated several hundreds of our native flowering plants, including about 182 which were additional to those recorded in earlier works” (Henrey, p. 47).
Henrey 155; Nissen BBI 698; STC 11751.