Category: Natural History

216 SPLENDID HAND-COLOURED C18TH ENGRAVING OF FISHES

BLOCH, Marcus Elieser. Ichtyologie, ou Histoire Naturelle, Generale et Particuliere des Poissons. Avec des figures enluminees, dessinees d’apres nature [Parts I-VI] Berlin, Chez l’auteur, & Chez Francois de la Garde, Libraire, 1785-1788.

£24500

FIRST FRENCH EDITION. Folio (leaves ca. 46×28; binding ca. 47.5×29.5). Parts 1-6 bound in 3 volumes, half-title and title to each part, with elaborate engraved vignette illustrating fishing scenes to each title by D. Berger after F.C.W. Rosenberg. Complete with 216 fine hand-coloured engraved plates, occasionally heightened with gold, silver and bronze pigments to reproduce the shiny reflective scales of fish. In clean condition, crisp and with good margins. Bound in contemporary full Russia with Greek key gilt border decoration to outer edges; skilfully rebacked, gilt decorated spines. Marbled endpapers. An excellent copy.

Marcus Elieser Bloch (1723-1799) was a German doctor and naturalist. This is a remarkable copy of the first six parts of his masterpiece on ichthyologie (the science of fishes), which Brunet defined “the most beautiful that we have about that part of natural history”. First published the same year in German in a quarto edition, this much larger and finer second edition of Bloch’s work was translated into French by J.-C. Laveaux. Nissen described it as “the finest illustrated work on fishes ever produced. The plates, by a variety of artists and engravers, are outstandingly coloured, and are heightened with gold, silver, and bronze to produce the metallic sheen of fish scales.” The engravings were based on drawings from the author’s own collection, which included around 1500 items. His was among the most extensive collections of illustrations devoted to ichthyologie in private hands at the time. The second 6 parts (7-12) of this monumental set in 12 parts containing a total of 432 plates were finished in 1797. Although some copies sold in the book trade and copies in public institutions may show a frontispiece portrait of the author, the present copy is nevertheless complete, since it was issued during the first impression. In fact, we have reason to believe that the portrait was added only in the second impression of these first six parts. Furthermore, this work can be considered complete as it is, because on the title-page of the sixth part, published in 1788, is written “sixth and last part”.

Brunet, I, 974; Nissen ZBI 416; Wood, p. 244; Dance, p. 56.

WRIGHT, Lewis. The Illustrated Book of Poultry. With practical schedules for judging, constructed from actual analysis of the best modern decisions.

London, Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, Belle Sauvage Works, [1873]

£2600

FIRST EDITION. 4t0; viii, 591 pp., with 50 chromolithograph plates: “Illustrated with Fifty Coloured Portraits of Prize Birds, Painted from Life by J.W. Ludlow”. Light age-yellowing and very occasional light spotting to margins. Bound in early half gilt-ruled dark brown morocco and buckram over thick boards, marbled pastedown, and richly gilt spine with title and author’s name below the head, divided in 6 compartments. Ex-libris on the inside of left cover, lettering scraped off. Corners and spine sympathetically repaired by a skilful hand. All edges marbled. Overall and excellent copy, clean, of this remarkable work.

This is most renowned and outstanding nineteenth-century work on poultry. “Originally issued in parts from 1872. The oil lithograph plates by J. W. Ludlow were portraits of actual birds and dated [frontispiece with Mr John Douglas black-breasted red game cock, nick-named “The Earl”, shown at Crystal Palace in 1870]. Lewis Wright was the editor of the Fanciers’ Gazette (later the Livestock Journal). … There are two variants of the original edition; in the first the frontispiece is dated 1868. In what may be called the second impression the frontispiece is dated 1870.” (Palmer, John. Poultry books: an annotated bibliography, 1990). This is the second impression of the first edition.

WIDE-MARGINED FINE COPY OF A VERY RARE BOTANICAL WORK

[BYAM, Lydia]. A Collection of Exotics, from the Island of Antigua. By a Lady.

London, 1797.

£20000

FIRST EDITION. Large folio. 5 unnumbered leaves comprising title and dedication, plus 12 fine hand-coloured botanical unsigned aquatint plates, title slightly soiled. Modern half-calf and contemporary marbled boards. The Robert de Belder copy (Sotheby’s, London, 1987). A fine copy.

First edition of a very rare botanical book from the library of Robert de Belder, creator of one of the greatest collections of botanical books in the world and founder of the Arboretum Kalmthout in Belgium. Lydia Byam was the elder sister of the Governor of Antigua, William Gunthorpe. This work was printed again in 1798 an 1799. The scarcity of complete copies in this good condition is seen in the fact that, of the two in the Natural History Museum, one lacks 7 of the 12 plates, while the other has its margins trimmed away and a broken binding (our copy is well-margined). Besides the Natural History Museum, there are no other known institutional holdings in Britain, and we know of only one copy of the second edition (at the Wellcome Library). OCLC WorldCat lists three locations only of the present printing in the US (National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hamilton College Library, New York Public Library). No further copies RLG. Hunt 749: “One of the rarest of American floras; not listed by Pritzel, Jackson, Dunthorne, Nissen or Great Flower Books…The charming delicately engraved plates are an example of good representations of American flora which in some instances antedate the earliest colour plates of these subjects listed by Pritzel and Stapf”.