.jpg?w=1)
Details
THOMAS PENNANT (1726-1798)
[Indian Zoology. London: at the expense of the author, Sir Joseph Banks and Johan Gideon Loten, 1769]. 2 (368 x 269mm). Collation: A-C2 D1. 12 hand-coloured etched plates by P.Mazell after Sydney Parkinson. Contemporary half calf (neatly re-backed with original red morocco lettering-piece laid down). Provenance: A.P. (?Anne or Arabella Pennant, ink monogram stamp on front free-endpaper); Thomas Philip, 2nd Earl de Grey (1781-1859); H.Bradley Martin (sale Sotheby's, New York 12 December 1989 lot 1787).
THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION WITH A DISTINGUISHED PROVENANCE. The work was abandoned after only 12 plates but still consitutes one of the earliest English attempts to describe and illustrate the zoology of the region. Pennant described the genesis of the work in his autobiographical but posthumously published The Literary Life of... Pennant.. by Himself. (London: 1793, pp.9-10): "My mind was always in a progressive state, it could never stagnate; this carried me farther than the limits of our island, and made me desirous of forming a zoology of some distant country... I was induced too consider that of India, from my acquaintance with John Gideon Loten [1710-1789], esq. who had long been a governor in more than one of the Dutch islands in the Indian ocean, and with a laudible zeal had employed several of the most accurate artists [i.e. Pieter Cornelisz de Bevere(n)] in delineating, on the spot, the birds, and other subjects of natural history. He offered to me the use of them... Twelve plates, in small folio, were engraven at the joint expence of sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Loten, and myself; to which I added descriptions and little essays. I forgot how the work ceased to procede." The plates were etched by Mazell from Parkinson's drawings, which were themselves copies of de Beveren's originals. A Singhalese artist, de Beveren had been commissioned by Johan Loten, who had been active in the service of the Dutch East India Company from 1731 until he retired to Utrecht in 1757. The rarity of the present work combinined with the A.P. monogram makes it probable that it originally belonged to either Pennant's daughter or his second wife. He had a daughter, Arabella, by his first marriage, his first wife dying in 1764, and he remarried Anne Mostyn in 1777. The Earl de Grey's library at Wrest Park was justly renowned for its rarities: the present work was not out of place. Anker 395; Fine Bird Books p.99; Nissen IVB 714; Zimmer 488.
[Indian Zoology. London: at the expense of the author, Sir Joseph Banks and Johan Gideon Loten, 1769]. 2 (368 x 269mm). Collation: A-C
THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST EDITION WITH A DISTINGUISHED PROVENANCE. The work was abandoned after only 12 plates but still consitutes one of the earliest English attempts to describe and illustrate the zoology of the region. Pennant described the genesis of the work in his autobiographical but posthumously published The Literary Life of... Pennant.. by Himself. (London: 1793, pp.9-10): "My mind was always in a progressive state, it could never stagnate; this carried me farther than the limits of our island, and made me desirous of forming a zoology of some distant country... I was induced too consider that of India, from my acquaintance with John Gideon Loten [1710-1789], esq. who had long been a governor in more than one of the Dutch islands in the Indian ocean, and with a laudible zeal had employed several of the most accurate artists [i.e. Pieter Cornelisz de Bevere(n)] in delineating, on the spot, the birds, and other subjects of natural history. He offered to me the use of them... Twelve plates, in small folio, were engraven at the joint expence of sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Loten, and myself; to which I added descriptions and little essays. I forgot how the work ceased to procede." The plates were etched by Mazell from Parkinson's drawings, which were themselves copies of de Beveren's originals. A Singhalese artist, de Beveren had been commissioned by Johan Loten, who had been active in the service of the Dutch East India Company from 1731 until he retired to Utrecht in 1757. The rarity of the present work combinined with the A.P. monogram makes it probable that it originally belonged to either Pennant's daughter or his second wife. He had a daughter, Arabella, by his first marriage, his first wife dying in 1764, and he remarried Anne Mostyn in 1777. The Earl de Grey's library at Wrest Park was justly renowned for its rarities: the present work was not out of place. Anker 395; Fine Bird Books p.99; Nissen IVB 714; Zimmer 488.