.jpg?w=1)
Details
AUGUSTIN PYRAMUS DE CANDOLLE (1778-1841).
Histoire des Plantes Grasses, par Redout [sic.] et de Candolle. Paris: imprimerie de Didot l'Ain, 1790 [but 1799-1804 or later]. 2 volumes, 2 (500 x 320mm). Letterpress titles. 145 stipple engraved plates only, printed in colours and finished by hand, after P.-J.Redout (143) and Henri-Joseph Redout (2). (Titles somewhat spotted, without preface, half-titles or indices.) Contemporary green staight-grained morocco, elborately tooled in gilt and blind, the covers panelled, the spines in six compartments with false raised bands, lettered in two, the others decorated with massed small tools in gilt and blind, g.e. (some light scuffing, joints tender). Provenance: Wood (of Kiethick, armorial bookplate); William Edward Collins, of Kiethick (inscription).
LARGE PAPER ISSUE OF THE REDOUT'S FIRST MAJOR WORK AS AN ILLUSTRATOR. It was also the first major botanical work to rely on colour-printed plates using techniques refined by Redout, and the last publishing enterprise stimulated by C.-L. l'Hriter de Brutelle. Whilst Redout began work on the drawings on vellum, R.-L. Desfontaines "found a young Swiss botanist, Augustin-Pyramus De Candolle.., then a student at the garden, ready to undertake the task of writing the descriptions of each species. Desfontaines also found a publisher... Out of this collaboration... developed the now famous Plantarum historia succulentum, perhaps better known by its French title Plantes grasses... The original folio edition was struck off in 100 copies... The number of copies printed for the quarto and for other later editions is not known" (Stafleu in Hunt Redouteana pp.15-16). The original edition was published in fasicles: the first 28 (containing 180 plates) between 1799 and 1805, when an argument between de Candolle and the publisher halted publication. "The work was resumed through the interest of the botanist J.-B.-.A. Guillemin (1796-1862), who issued, in quarto edition, another three fasicles (nos.29-31 [with a further 19 plates]). A thirty-second fasicle of five plates remains unpublished.
A date cannot be assigned to the present issue. Stafleu & Cowan wrote that the work was "one of the nightmares of botanical bibliography" and go on to say that "Several editions are known to have been distributed, but new title-pages, partial indexes and new covers were issued at different times either with existing stock or with later reprints... There are hardly any identical copies. Very often plates are lacking, but... a huge number of 'variants' exist". The present set includes an obviously spurious date on titles which appear, from the syle of the typography, to have been printed in the 1820's. Dunthorne 241; Great Flower Books p.53; Hunt Redouteana 6; Nissen BBI 321; Stafleu & Cowan 983. (2)
Histoire des Plantes Grasses, par Redout [sic.] et de Candolle. Paris: imprimerie de Didot l'Ain, 1790 [but 1799-1804 or later]. 2 volumes, 2 (500 x 320mm). Letterpress titles. 145 stipple engraved plates only, printed in colours and finished by hand, after P.-J.Redout (143) and Henri-Joseph Redout (2). (Titles somewhat spotted, without preface, half-titles or indices.) Contemporary green staight-grained morocco, elborately tooled in gilt and blind, the covers panelled, the spines in six compartments with false raised bands, lettered in two, the others decorated with massed small tools in gilt and blind, g.e. (some light scuffing, joints tender). Provenance: Wood (of Kiethick, armorial bookplate); William Edward Collins, of Kiethick (inscription).
LARGE PAPER ISSUE OF THE REDOUT'S FIRST MAJOR WORK AS AN ILLUSTRATOR. It was also the first major botanical work to rely on colour-printed plates using techniques refined by Redout, and the last publishing enterprise stimulated by C.-L. l'Hriter de Brutelle. Whilst Redout began work on the drawings on vellum, R.-L. Desfontaines "found a young Swiss botanist, Augustin-Pyramus De Candolle.., then a student at the garden, ready to undertake the task of writing the descriptions of each species. Desfontaines also found a publisher... Out of this collaboration... developed the now famous Plantarum historia succulentum, perhaps better known by its French title Plantes grasses... The original folio edition was struck off in 100 copies... The number of copies printed for the quarto and for other later editions is not known" (Stafleu in Hunt Redouteana pp.15-16). The original edition was published in fasicles: the first 28 (containing 180 plates) between 1799 and 1805, when an argument between de Candolle and the publisher halted publication. "The work was resumed through the interest of the botanist J.-B.-.A. Guillemin (1796-1862), who issued, in quarto edition, another three fasicles (nos.29-31 [with a further 19 plates]). A thirty-second fasicle of five plates remains unpublished.
A date cannot be assigned to the present issue. Stafleu & Cowan wrote that the work was "one of the nightmares of botanical bibliography" and go on to say that "Several editions are known to have been distributed, but new title-pages, partial indexes and new covers were issued at different times either with existing stock or with later reprints... There are hardly any identical copies. Very often plates are lacking, but... a huge number of 'variants' exist". The present set includes an obviously spurious date on titles which appear, from the syle of the typography, to have been printed in the 1820's. Dunthorne 241; Great Flower Books p.53; Hunt Redouteana 6; Nissen BBI 321; Stafleu & Cowan 983. (2)
