Details
ORCHID ALBUMS -- Five manuscript Orchid Albums by Elise Nees von Esenbeck. [Breslau: 1865-1866].
5 volumes, 2° (473 x 303mm, mounted to 563 x 395mm), containing 138 drawings of orchids in black chalk and bodycolour on grey prepared paper, mounted recto and verso and on pastedowns, most drawings initialled "E.N." and inscribed "n[ach] d[er] Natur" and dated, each with an inscription identifying the orchid by its Latin name, giving its natural habitat (Java, Mexico, Brazil, etc.) and citing a published reference. (Occasional spotting.) Contemporary near-uniform gilt- and blindstamped cloth (very slight wear to a few spines).
A FINE SET OF DELICATELY RENDERED ORCHID DRAWINGS by Elise Nees von Esenbeck (1842-1921). Her love of flowers no doubt derived from her grandfather and great-uncle, two of Germany's greatest 19th-century botanists. She lived in Breslau from 1844, where she studied with Anna Storch. She also studied with Margareth Hormuth-Kallmorgen at Carlsruhe and with Margarete Rosenboom in Holland. Her work was exhibited not only around Silesia, but in Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Antwerp, and she won a prize for her orchid painting in Chicago. That prize was clearly well-deserved, considering the delicacy and skill evident in the present albums. They show her as a keen observer of nature and a talented artist. As the inscriptions attest, she drew from nature. The orchids depicted here are native to Caracas, Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, Java, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Ceylon, Surinam, Hong Kong, Calcutta, Manila, and Japan. Unlike her forebear, Theodor Friedrich Nees, who accompanied botanical expeditions abroad and drew exotic species in their native environment, Elise is not known to have undertaken any such journeys, and presumably made these drawings in the extensive botanical gardens at Breslau. The drawings cover more than a year's work, dating from February 1865 through September 1866. (5)
5 volumes, 2° (473 x 303mm, mounted to 563 x 395mm), containing 138 drawings of orchids in black chalk and bodycolour on grey prepared paper, mounted recto and verso and on pastedowns, most drawings initialled "E.N." and inscribed "n[ach] d[er] Natur" and dated, each with an inscription identifying the orchid by its Latin name, giving its natural habitat (Java, Mexico, Brazil, etc.) and citing a published reference. (Occasional spotting.) Contemporary near-uniform gilt- and blindstamped cloth (very slight wear to a few spines).
A FINE SET OF DELICATELY RENDERED ORCHID DRAWINGS by Elise Nees von Esenbeck (1842-1921). Her love of flowers no doubt derived from her grandfather and great-uncle, two of Germany's greatest 19th-century botanists. She lived in Breslau from 1844, where she studied with Anna Storch. She also studied with Margareth Hormuth-Kallmorgen at Carlsruhe and with Margarete Rosenboom in Holland. Her work was exhibited not only around Silesia, but in Berlin, Dresden, Munich and Antwerp, and she won a prize for her orchid painting in Chicago. That prize was clearly well-deserved, considering the delicacy and skill evident in the present albums. They show her as a keen observer of nature and a talented artist. As the inscriptions attest, she drew from nature. The orchids depicted here are native to Caracas, Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, Jamaica, Java, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Ceylon, Surinam, Hong Kong, Calcutta, Manila, and Japan. Unlike her forebear, Theodor Friedrich Nees, who accompanied botanical expeditions abroad and drew exotic species in their native environment, Elise is not known to have undertaken any such journeys, and presumably made these drawings in the extensive botanical gardens at Breslau. The drawings cover more than a year's work, dating from February 1865 through September 1866. (5)