.jpg?w=1)
Details
NATURE PRINTING -- CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB LUDWIG (1709-1773)
Ectypa vegetabilium usibus medicis praecipue destinatorum .... Nach der Natur verfertigte Abdrcke der Gewchse. Halle and Leipzig: Johann Gottfried Trampe for Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, 1760-[1764]. 8 parts in one volume, 2 (420 x 220mm). 200 plates of flowering plants nature-printed and hand-coloured, parallel text in Latin and German with fleurons used as running heads. (Plate 25 affected by oxidation marks and plate 50 by spotting, title slightly dampstained, first leaf of text spotted.) Contemporary German calf, gilt rules on covers and spine (small repair to head of spine, extremities rubbed).
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of this rare work, preceded only by J. H. Kniphof's Botanica in originali (Halle, 1757-64) as an example of "naturselbstdruck" or nature-printing, and produced on a larger and more ambitious scale. The work was published over four years in 8 parts with a series of 25 plates in each. In the process of reproduction the plant itself took the place of the woodblock or engraved plate. Once the specimens were arranged, they were covered with a dark dust, and the outlines thus formed on the paper were then coloured either by hand or a combined colour printing and hand-colouring process. Particular care was required in inking the specimens many of which could only sustain the smallest of print runs. Although some forms of detail are lost, the plates possess crude vigour in some cases and linear grace in others, and do seem remarkably like dried and pressed herbarium specimens with their flattened perspective. However, it is their colour which brings them to life and gives them a special immediacy. Several of the plates have the names of the plants and plate numbers on pasted slips rather than printed on the plates themselves. Ludwig, a botanist-physician from Silesia, who became professor of medicine at Leipzig, published works on both plants and mineralogy, and is remembered in the genus "Ludwigiana" Linn., a member of the evening primrose family. Fischer 8; Dunthorne 188; Hunt 569; Nissen BBI 1252; Stafleu and Cowan III, 5068.
Ectypa vegetabilium usibus medicis praecipue destinatorum .... Nach der Natur verfertigte Abdrcke der Gewchse. Halle and Leipzig: Johann Gottfried Trampe for Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf, 1760-[1764]. 8 parts in one volume, 2 (420 x 220mm). 200 plates of flowering plants nature-printed and hand-coloured, parallel text in Latin and German with fleurons used as running heads. (Plate 25 affected by oxidation marks and plate 50 by spotting, title slightly dampstained, first leaf of text spotted.) Contemporary German calf, gilt rules on covers and spine (small repair to head of spine, extremities rubbed).
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of this rare work, preceded only by J. H. Kniphof's Botanica in originali (Halle, 1757-64) as an example of "naturselbstdruck" or nature-printing, and produced on a larger and more ambitious scale. The work was published over four years in 8 parts with a series of 25 plates in each. In the process of reproduction the plant itself took the place of the woodblock or engraved plate. Once the specimens were arranged, they were covered with a dark dust, and the outlines thus formed on the paper were then coloured either by hand or a combined colour printing and hand-colouring process. Particular care was required in inking the specimens many of which could only sustain the smallest of print runs. Although some forms of detail are lost, the plates possess crude vigour in some cases and linear grace in others, and do seem remarkably like dried and pressed herbarium specimens with their flattened perspective. However, it is their colour which brings them to life and gives them a special immediacy. Several of the plates have the names of the plants and plate numbers on pasted slips rather than printed on the plates themselves. Ludwig, a botanist-physician from Silesia, who became professor of medicine at Leipzig, published works on both plants and mineralogy, and is remembered in the genus "Ludwigiana" Linn., a member of the evening primrose family. Fischer 8; Dunthorne 188; Hunt 569; Nissen BBI 1252; Stafleu and Cowan III, 5068.