[ROXBURGH, William.] A COLLECTION OF WATERCOLOR DRAWINGS OF INDIAN FLOWERS AND PLANTS BELIEVED TO BE MADE FOR WILLIAM ROXBURGH, comprising watercolors of 463 plants, captioned in pencil, [Calcutta?, ca. 1812-14]. 2 volumes, 8o, 237 x 176 mm. (Few short tears and chips to edges, few old tape repairs on versos, some occasional spotting and light browning, some worming to last 60 watercolors.) First volume bound in modern black buckram, the second in modern brown morocco. Provenance: Massachusetts Horticultural Society (stamps).
[ROXBURGH, William.] A COLLECTION OF WATERCOLOR DRAWINGS OF INDIAN FLOWERS AND PLANTS BELIEVED TO BE MADE FOR WILLIAM ROXBURGH, comprising watercolors of 463 plants, captioned in pencil, [Calcutta?, ca. 1812-14]. 2 volumes, 8o, 237 x 176 mm. (Few short tears and chips to edges, few old tape repairs on versos, some occasional spotting and light browning, some worming to last 60 watercolors.) First volume bound in modern black buckram, the second in modern brown morocco. Provenance: Massachusetts Horticultural Society (stamps).

Details
[ROXBURGH, William.] A COLLECTION OF WATERCOLOR DRAWINGS OF INDIAN FLOWERS AND PLANTS BELIEVED TO BE MADE FOR WILLIAM ROXBURGH, comprising watercolors of 463 plants, captioned in pencil, [Calcutta?, ca. 1812-14]. 2 volumes, 8o, 237 x 176 mm. (Few short tears and chips to edges, few old tape repairs on versos, some occasional spotting and light browning, some worming to last 60 watercolors.) First volume bound in modern black buckram, the second in modern brown morocco. Provenance: Massachusetts Horticultural Society (stamps).

Roxburgh described some 2,600 species of plants while he was in charge of the Calcutta Botanic Garden. Roxburgh held the post for twenty years, having assumed it in 1793 after his charge of a botanic garden at Samalkot, an experimental station in the Madras Presidency. Drawings were made by a team of Indian artists. Roxburgh's descriptions were published in the Flora Indica but only 700 of the drawings were published, in his own Plants of the Coast of Coromandel and Robert Wight's Icones plantarum Indiae Orientalis. Several sets of the original drawings were made, most in folio format, the most complete of which are those in the Calcutta Botanic Garden and a duplicate set sent to the East India Company, now at Kew.

[With:]

ROXBURGH, William. Flora Indica; or, Descriptions of Indian Plants. Serampore: Printed for W. Thacker & Co. and Parbury, Allen and Co., 1832. Three volumes, 8o. First volume in modern buckram, the remaining in original boards (second with covers detached, third rebacked). Provenance: E. Smith (ownership inscriptions in vols. II and III); Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Stickney Fund (bookplates in vols. II and III dated 1893). FIRST EDITION. (5)
;

More from IMPORTANT BOTANICAL BOOKS

View All
View All