Figures of Plants

London: Thomas Martyn, 10 Great Marlborough Street, 1796. 3 volumes. Folio. (13 1/2 x 10 5/8 inches). 102 watercolors over etched line. 90 distinct watercolors with 12 variants. 1795 Volume: Unpaginated, 86 pp. Manuscript title page and 42 watercolors over etched line. 1796 Volume I: Unpaginated, 130 pp. Manuscript title and 30 watercolors over etched line, each with manuscript description on preceding leaf. 1796 Volume II: Unpaginated, 68 pp. 29 watercolors over etched lines with 3 ink manuscript leaves with descriptions. All finely bound in contemporary straight-grained red Morocco, 1795 Volume with gilt fillet, 1796 Volumes with gilt fillets and Greek key pattern borders on covers, all spines gilt in compartments, 1796 Volumes with drawer-handle motifs, all titled in gilt in second compartment [MARTYN'S PLANTS], 1795 Volume with marbled black and red endpapers, 1796 Volumes with marbled cobalt endpapers. 1795 Volume and 1796 Volume I with binder's ticket of Charles Hering (1763-1815) of 10 St. Martin Street in London on front pastedowns of each.

An unparalleled collection of 102 magnificent watercolor botanical illustrations by Thomas Martyn and his academy. One of the rarest botanical books by a renown master; only four other examples in the census of copies.

The Thomas Martyn (fl. 1760-1816) who produced Figures of Plants is not the Thomas Martyn (1735-1825) who wrote the commonly found Flora Rustica (1792) and was a professor of botany at Cambridge, like his father John Martyn (1699-1768). Our Martyn was born in Coventry, England. He was an artist and publisher of the natural sciences known best for the Universal Conchologist which illustrated exotic sea shells and won medals from many European leaders. His illustrations of plants, butterflies, shells, and spiders, remain among the most exquisite issued in book format. The plates of Martyn's books were lightly etched and watercolored by a group of young apprentice artists trained by Martyn for an operation he called the Academy for Painting Natural History. Martyn opened the academy in 1786 and by 1789 he employed 10 apprentices. Martyn recruited these youths because he desired a "uniformity and equality of style, conception, and execution which it would be in vain to expect from a variety of independent artists." Subsequent publications Martyn and his academy published include The English Entomologist (1792); Aranei or a Natural History of Spiders (1793); and Psyche: Figures of Nondescript Lepidopterous Insects (1797). The 1795 Volume has chain-laid endpapers with a "Lepard" watermark and wove paper with "J. Whatman" watermarks. The 1796 Volumes have "J. Whatman" watermarks on wove paper. The 1795 Volume is credited to "Mr. Martyn" at "No 10 Great Marlborough Street London" while the 1796 Volumes are credited to "Thomas Martyn" at "Great Marlborough Street London" with no street number. Each of the manuscript description leaves in the 1796 Volumes include the plant's common name, its Latin binomial, and a brief description as to its prevalence, habitat, size, and season. All of the drawings in 1796 Volume 1 have a leaf of manuscript description; only 3 in 1796 Volume II do. Figures of Plants Census: 1. British Library copy: 43 plates, no descriptions, 1795. Shelf number: 44.i.18 2. Newberry Library copy formerly owned by Henry Probasco: 2 folios, 65 plates, 1795-1796. 3. John Townley copy sold at Christie's October 19, Lot 28 in 1999: 2 volumes in 1, 65 plates, 1796. Sold at $157,965. 4. Fattorini copy sold at Sotheby's May 8, Lot 20 in 2002: 1 volume, 51 plates, 1795. Sold at $87,162. 5. Our copy: 3 volumes, 102 plates, many with descriptions, 1795-1796. Plate names: 1795 Volume: 42 distinct figures, hand-numbered in pencil with plate names. Unlike the 1796 volumes, these figures are depicted within gilt-rulings: 1. Sublinear Aster. 2. Heart Leaved Aster. 3. One Flowered Aster. 4. Indian Aster. 5. Umbrella Aster. 6. Pyrenean Aster. 7. Thready Flap. 8. Broad Leaved Pokeweed. 9. Short Rayed Aster. 10. Dolled Aster. 11. Curled Leaved Aster. 12. Canada Teucrine. 13. Teattering Aster. 14. Long Beaked Cranebill. 15. Caroline Sun Flower. 16. Hyssop Skullcap. 17. Oval Rockweed. 18. Wavy Leaved Aster. 19. Tuft Sword Leaf. 20. Common Willow Wart. 21. Long Spiked Aster. 22. Drooping Leaved Aster. 23. Pinnfield Bryong. 24. Blustery Aster. 25. Hairy Sleeps Rampion. 26. Expanded Hopwort. 27. Flaxy Aster. 28. Embroidered Cranebell. 29. Superb Tuft Flower. 30. Blue Sapifrage. 31. Arrow Broom. 32. Five Leaved Rattlewort. 33. Hoary Linwood. 34. Painted Cranebell. 35. Tall Bare Rocked. 36. American Hyssopine. 37. Entire Leaved Starry Scabious. 38. Alpine Downwort. 39. Ramping Leopard's Bane. 40. Helianthoide Ox Eye. 41. Hooked Mariot. 42. Pale Mullein. 1796 Volume I: 31 figures, 20 of which are distinct, 11 are variants. Hand-numbered in pencil with preceding ink manuscript name and description. 1. Sublinear Aster. 2. Pale Mullein. 3. Dingy Wellwood. 4. Coval Bears Sanicle. 5. Dark Loose Stripe. 6. Short Rayed Aster. 7. Heart Leaved Aster. 8. Broad Loose Stripe. 9. Indian Aster. 10. Hairy Aster. 11. Red-disk'd Aster. 12. Tufty Sword Leaf. 13 Heathy Aster. 14. Five Leaved Rattlewort. [Skips plate 15.] 16. Woody Tobacco. 17. Ramping Leopard's Bane. 18. Warted Thorn Apple. 19. Folded Sanicle. 20. Leafy Knight Weed. 21. Hyssop Skullcap. 22. Helianthoide Ox-Eye. 23. Fine Saned Pleuridge. 24. Violet Bell Flower. 25. Moors Teucrine. 26. Decumbent Mud-Weed. 27. Egg-Leaved Light Wort. 28. Stinging Tobacco. 29. Painted Cranebill. 30. Oriental Taperweed. 31. Azure Pink Weed. 32. Sea Scording. 1796 Volume II: 29 figures, 28 of which are distinct, 1 is a variant, with 3 ink manuscript title leaves and plates hand-numbered in pencil: 33. Long-Flowered Marvel of Peru. 50. Prickly Molucca Baum. 54. Water Mint. The rest of the figures are untitled.

Boulger, Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 36. Dall, "Thomas Martyn and the Universal Conchologist," Proceedings of the US National Museum, No. 1425, 1905, 415-432. Nichols, Lit. Anecdotes, viii. 432. Probasco, Catalogue of the Collection of Books, Manuscripts, and Works of Art: Belonging to Mr. Henry Probasco, 1873, 220.