JACQUIN, NIKOLAUS JOSEPH, Baron von. Hortus Botanicus Vindobonensis, seu Plantarum rariorum, quae in Horto Botanico Vindobonensi... coluntur, icones coloratae et succinctae descriptiones. Vienna: Leopold Johann Kaliwoda (vols. I and II) and Joseph Michael Gerold (vol. III) for Nicolas Jacquin, 1770-76.

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JACQUIN, NIKOLAUS JOSEPH, Baron von. Hortus Botanicus Vindobonensis, seu Plantarum rariorum, quae in Horto Botanico Vindobonensi... coluntur, icones coloratae et succinctae descriptiones. Vienna: Leopold Johann Kaliwoda (vols. I and II) and Joseph Michael Gerold (vol. III) for Nicolas Jacquin, 1770-76.

3 volumes in 4, large folio broadsheets, 489 x 296 mm., contemporary half calf, spines lettered in gilt, edges untrimmed, some rubbing to joints and extremities, vol. 1 with chip at tail of spine, slight marginal staining to first title and section titles, blank lower outer corner of first title torn away, one-inch marginal tear at guard of folding plate 31, plates 48 and 78 slightly darkened, marginal tears to pl. 100, small crease to pl. 26, repaired tear to folding plate 54 in Centuria Tertia, coloring of the last plate slightly rubbed.

FIRST EDITION, NUMBER 158 OF 162 COPIES. This copy with the text volumes bound together, with 3 letterpress titles, and 2 index leaves at the end of vols. 2 and 3, woodcut head-piece ornaments and initials; and each of the three centuries of plates bound separately, 3 half-titles or section titles, one hand-colored plan of the garden and 300 HAND-COLORED ENGRAVED PLATES OF PLANTS, 4 folding, by Franz von Scheidel and Jacquin. Latin and French manuscript captions supplied in an eighteenth-century hand.

THE FIRST OF THE GREAT JACQUIN COLOR-PLATE BOOKS, containing Jacquin's illustrations of the rare plants in the botanic garden of the University of Vienna, including both ornamental and useful European and exotic plants. This splendid edition was published under the patronage of Maria Theresa. Jacquin was by this time Director of the university gardens and professor of Botany and Chemistry at the University. He was made a baron by Franz II in 1806. Nissen characterized Jacquin's color plates, "with their sober and clean yet elegant figures" as "the most beautiful memento of the golden age of Austrian botany", and calculated that his combined publications contained a total of 3,000 botanical engravings (I, p. 184).

Dunthorne 150; Great Flower Books, p. 61; Nissen BBI 973; Pritzel 4365; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 3246.

Provenance: Conservatoire Botanique de Genève, library stamp and duplicate sale stamps dated 1922 on first title and each section title -- Kenneth K. Mackenzie; Horticultural Society of New York, bookplates -- Robert de Belder (sale, Sotheby's London, 28 April 1987, lot 175). (4)