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GEORG EBERHARD RUMPF (1627-1702)
D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, behelzende eene Beschryvinge van... Schaalvisschen. Amsterdam: Francois Halmer, 1705. 2° (391 x 250mm). Half-title, additional engraved title, title printed in red and black, engraved portrait of the author, engraved head- and tail-pieces of which one hand-coloured, 60 finely engraved plates of which plates XVII-IL coloured in contemporary hand. Contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt spine (front joint split, rear joint cracking, corners bumped, some light rubbing). Provenance: J.B. Powis (book label).
FIRST EDITION, A FINE COPY WITH SOME PLATES COLOURED IN A CONTEMPORARY HAND. This major work on tropical marine life of the Molucca Islands in the Indian Archipelago (Indonesia) was Rumpf’s most famous achievement and was published after his death. It was especially interesting and useful for the owners of popular collections of natural curiosities and most of the plates were engraved after drawings by Maria Sybilla Merian which are still preserved today in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Rumpf was employed by the Dutch East India Company and spent the greater part of his life on the island of Ambon, a small but important trading centre in the Dutch East Indies. He began a systematic study of the flora and fauna of the island, describing and drawing everything he saw, and sending his manuscripts to Amsterdam. Though far away from the centres of Western civilisation, Rumpf maintained correspondences with scholars in both Europe and the East Indies, and in 1681 he became a member of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum with the honourable name of ‘Plinius Indicus’. Nissen ZBI 3518; Wood, p.545 (‘rare’).
D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, behelzende eene Beschryvinge van... Schaalvisschen. Amsterdam: Francois Halmer, 1705. 2° (391 x 250mm). Half-title, additional engraved title, title printed in red and black, engraved portrait of the author, engraved head- and tail-pieces of which one hand-coloured, 60 finely engraved plates of which plates XVII-IL coloured in contemporary hand. Contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt spine (front joint split, rear joint cracking, corners bumped, some light rubbing). Provenance: J.B. Powis (book label).
FIRST EDITION, A FINE COPY WITH SOME PLATES COLOURED IN A CONTEMPORARY HAND. This major work on tropical marine life of the Molucca Islands in the Indian Archipelago (Indonesia) was Rumpf’s most famous achievement and was published after his death. It was especially interesting and useful for the owners of popular collections of natural curiosities and most of the plates were engraved after drawings by Maria Sybilla Merian which are still preserved today in the Archives of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Rumpf was employed by the Dutch East India Company and spent the greater part of his life on the island of Ambon, a small but important trading centre in the Dutch East Indies. He began a systematic study of the flora and fauna of the island, describing and drawing everything he saw, and sending his manuscripts to Amsterdam. Though far away from the centres of Western civilisation, Rumpf maintained correspondences with scholars in both Europe and the East Indies, and in 1681 he became a member of the Academia Naturae Curiosorum with the honourable name of ‘Plinius Indicus’. Nissen ZBI 3518; Wood, p.545 (‘rare’).
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