BOTANY -- TREW, C.J. Plantae Selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum. Nuremberg, 1750-1773. Text-pp. present: 23-56, (2). W. 1 engr. title, (letters in red, black, and gold), 3 fine mezzotint portraits of Trew, G.D. Ehret, and J.J. Haid, 50 (of 100) handcold. engr. plates (nrs. 51-100) after Ehret by Haid, each with the first word of the caption highlighted in gold & 1 extra (unnumb.) plate by Ehret ('Agaricus Ramosus'). - Bound with: 21 handcold. engr. plates taken from Knorr's 'Thesaurus rei herbariae hortensisque universalis'. - Tog. in 1 vol. Lge-fol. Cont. cf. w. dec. gilt back (Bind. dam. and sides loose, free endpaper torn, faint waterstain in outer blank margin of some lvs., but else fine (apart from some minor foxing spots/yellowing) and with the plates in good condition).
Second half of one of the greatest eighteenth-century botanical colour-plate books. The Plantae Selectae is considered by Nissen to be the finest botanical work ever printed in Germany. Trew, physician at Nuremberg and amateur botanist, admired the talent and skill of his younger countryman, Georg Ehret, a gardener and flower painter. Ehret is one of the great painters of flowering plants in the eighteenth century and all 100 plates of the Plantae selectae were painted by him. Trew died in 1769, leaving the last three parts uncompleted. The work was finished by Benedict Christian Vogel, Professor of Botany at the University of Altdorf. The work was conceived as early as 1742 when Trew wrote to Christian Thran in Carlsruhe: "Every year I receive some beautifully painted exotic plants (by Ehret) and have already more than one hundred of them, which with other pieces executed by local artists, should later on, Deo volante, constitute an appendicem to Weinmann’s publication but will, I hope, find a better reception than his". In 1748, agreement was reached that Johann Jacob Haid from Augsburg should provide the engravings, and the first part appeared in 1750. - Dunthorne 309; Great Flower Books, p. 78; Hunt 539; Nissen, BBI, 1997; Pritzel 9499; Plesch Coll. 771. For the Knorr plates see: Hunt 538; Nissen, BBI, 1081; Pritzel 4757.€ 6000
result € 8000
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