Blumen Zeichnung.

1816. MAYRHOFFER, Johann Nepomuk. Anleitung zur Blumen-Zeichnung. 2 ff., illustrated with 14 full-page lithographs of flowers. Oblong 4to, 240 x 380 mm., bound in old blue wrappers, preserved in green half-morocco folding case. Munich: Im Verlag der lithographischen Kunst-Anstalt bey der Feyertags-Schule, 1816. An extremely attractive drawing manual which is also an early example of German lithography. "Mayrhoffer's flowers were drawn in the idiom of eighteenth-century flower plates, and his careful and unobtrusive chalk-work provided an ideal basis for hand-colouring" (Twyman, Lithography 1800-1850, p. 20). First published in 1810, this second edition depicts various stages of drawings of flowers, from the preliminary outline to the finished drawing, all executed in lithograph, with chalk drawings prepared directly on the stone by the artist himself. Johann Nepomuk Mayrhoffer (1764-1832), who describes himself on the title-page as "Blumen-Mahler," was born at Oberneukirchen (Austria) and studied at the Munich Academy (in the earliest years of the nineteenth-century Munich was the main center of lithography in Germany). Mayrhoffer specialized in still-life paintings and lithographs of fruits and flowers. A fine, complete copy. This work is extremely rare: OCLC records just three copies of the 1810 edition: Rosenwald Collection DLC, Dumbarton Oaks, and Sachsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden, and one copy of this 1816 edition: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. No copies at auction as listed in ABPC. Nissen, BBI 1322. Dussler, Nr. VII. Winkler 521, 167-181.