Uitgezochte Planten, beschreven door... Trew... iut het latyn vertalt door Cornelius Pereboom

by TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769)

Price: $120,000.00
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Amsterdam: Jan Christian Sepp, [1769]-1771-[1774]. Folio. (20 2/3 x 14 2/5 inches). 3 mezzotint portraits of Trew, G.D. Ehret and J.J. Haid, 100 hand-coloured engraved plates by Johann Jacob Haid and Johann Elias Haid after Georg Dionysius Ehret, each with the first word of the caption heightened in gold. Contemporary Dutch mottled calf gilt, covers with central panel surrounded by gilt roll-tool border of stylized foliage. Modern tan cloth box, tan morocco lettering piece. An excellent copy of the first Dutch edition of Trew's celebrated 'Plantae Selectae' one of the greatest eighteenth century botanical books, with 100 plates after paintings by Georg Dionysius Ehret. Linnaeus, wrote to Trew, in Latin, that "The miracles of our century in the natural sciences are your work of Ehret's plants, Edwards' work of birds and Roesel's of insects, nothing to equal them was seen in the past or will be in the future". Christoph Trew, a physician and amateur botanist, had for a number of years been an admirer of Ehret's work. Ehret, a brilliant botanical artist, was unrivalled in his ability to "achieve realism, majesty, ineffable colour, all in one breathtaking look." (Hunt), he was born in Heidelberg in 1710 and originally worked as a gardener, practising drawing in his spare time. His artistic abilities led him to the service of a Regensburg banker named Leskenkohl who had commissioned him to copy plates in van Rheede tot Draakestein, Hortus indicus malabaricus (1678-1693), it was during this period that Trew met Ehret. Trew was to remain a friend and patron of Ehret's throughout his life, and by 1742 the germ of what was to become the present publication was already under discussion when Trew wrote to Christian Thran in Carlsruhe, "Every year I receive some beautifully painted exotic plants [by Ehret] and have already more than one hundred of them, which with other pieces executed by local artists, should later on… constitute an appendicem to Weinmann's publication." Meanwhile, Ehret had moved to London in the late 1730's, where he painted the recently introduced exotics at the Chelsea Physic Garden and established himself as a teacher of flower-painting and botany. Discussions about the projected work continued by letter until in 1748, Johann Jacob Haid from Augsburg agreed to produce the engravings from Ehret's drawings. The first part was published in 1750, with the six subsequent parts appearing before Trew's death 1769. With the help of Benedict Christian Vogel, Professor of Botany at the University of Altdorf, the work was completed in 1773. The present edition was begun at about the time of Trew's death. Employing the same plates as had been used in the first edition, the Dutch publisher Jan Christian Sepp (who specialized in the publication of de luxe natural history books) had them very carefully coloured - the higher quality of the hand-colouring of this edition is self-evident - and arranged for Pereboom to translate the text. The publication of this edition very soon caught up with its first edition counterpart, and the work was completed in five years rather than the thirteen years that the first had taken. Cf. Hunt 539; Nissen BBI 1998; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 15.131.

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