Rare books from Florilegius

Rare volume on camellias from Kan'en Iwasaki's multi-volume botanical series Honzo Zufu (Iconographia Plantarum), originally compiled in 1828 and later published in 92 volumes. This volume, number 88 in the series, includes 10 pages of text and index of camellia species, and 47 color woodcuts of Camellia japonica varieties.Condition: Washi paper covers scuffed, but interior very clean, strong impressions of color plates with vivid color.Kan'en Iwasaki or Tsunemasa Iwasaki (1786–1842) was a Japanese botanist, zoologist and entomologist. His botanical studies were influenced by Johann Weinmann.

Kaishien Gaden (Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden) is an Edo-Era Japanese edition of the very popular Chinese painting guide Jieziyuan Huazhaun by Wang Gai, first published in the Qing Dynasty in China (1701). The manual was reprinted many times from 1748 onwards in Japan.Four volumes from the Second Collection, with drawing instructions and examples for ume plums and kiku chrysanthemums. (Lacks the four volumes on ran orchids and take bamboo.)Vol. 1 Plums: 28pp text, 22 b/w plates; 6pp text, 40 color platesVol. 2 Chrysanthemums: 16pp text, 22 b/w plates; 12pp text, 20 b/w plates The woodblock prints in the plum volume, part 2, are double-page full-color reproductions of botanical art by famous Chinese artists with their seals.Condition: Covers browned and scuffed with some minor worm damage, interior solid and woodcuts mostly clean and bright, but with some browning and worming mostly outside the image.

Complete set of this portable edition of Abbe Pluche's popular work on natural history for children, first published in 1732 and reprinted many times. First edition in 12mo, published in An 11 of the French Revolution (1803).With 61 fine copperplates by Jacques de Seve, including 2 frontispieces, 4 folding celestial maps (illustrator). Plates engraved by Duhamel, Letellier, Racine and Bigani. Vol. 1: 359pp, frontispiece, 5 plates of insects and shells; Vol. 2: 300pp, 5 plates of birds, animals, fish and plants; Vol. 3: 353pp, 7 plates of botany; Vol. 4: 336pp, 10 plates of botany and equipment; Vol 5, 347pp, 21 plates of fish, ships and shells; Vol. 6, 344pp, 3 plates of gems and astrology; Vol.7, 364pp, 8 plates (4 folding) of astrology; Vol. 8, 231pp, frontispiece.With half titles, tables of contents and list of illustrations in each volume. Elaborate gilt decorated spines with red title labels and volume numbers. Some scuffing to boards, but interior fresh and all plates present and free of… Read More

Six volumes only of this rare eight-volume set. (Vol. VIII was discontinued after only 4 issues with 12 plates.)With 352 hand-coloured engraved plates (of 360).Incomplete set of this rare handy pocket-sized edition of 18th century natural history describing many newly discovered species.Text and plates copied from accounts published by Count Buffon, George Edwards, George Shaw, James Bruce, Thomas Pennant, Maria Sybilla Merian and others. Includes the extinct dodo and sukotyro, endangered animals and birds (Siau Island tarsier, white rhinoceros, polar bear, Indian bustard, great green macaw, wild water buffalo, banded cotinga, Russian mink, African grey parrot). Also notable for the early images of plants and animals discovered in New South Wales, Australia (short-beaked echidna, kangaroo, black swan, eastern quoll, waratah, Banksia, etc.).Half contemporary calf with red and black morocco gilt spine labels, marbled boards scuffed, front board off Vol. VI. Some plates loose or trimmed, foxing and… Read More

Rare complete copy of Keika Hasegawa's "100 chrysanthemums by Keika" (The British Museum only has Volumes 1 and 2, the Smithsonian only 2 and 3.)75 colour woodblock prints (all published), including eight double-page, from this seminal book on the cultivation of chrysanthemums. Volumes 1 and 2 published in July 1893 and Volume 3 published in December 1903. Chrysanthemum cultivation came to Japan from China in the 8th century and the flower was later adopted as the Emperor's crest. Over the centuries, extraordinary hybrids of elegant shapes and vibrant colours were produced, many of which are recorded in this book.Little is known about the artist Keika Hasegawa. (The name Keika is usually a woman's name.) Active in the final years of the 19th century, she also produced books of patterns for kimono and washi paper such as "Biko Zukan" (1894) and "Kyoka Zuan" (1897). Original wraps are grubby and worn, interior slightly browned and edges worn. A few prints with faint stains. 1cm wormhole to two plates… Read More

A beautiful copy of Ernst Haeckel's influential book on natural history that married art and science.First complete book edition following the original edition in parts published from 1899-1904. With the 51-page supplement. 100 fine plates, some printed in colour, chromolithographed by Adolf Giltsch after sketches by Ernst Haeckel. "First edition of this famous and marvelous work which had a considerable influence on decorative design in the Jugendstil and Art Nouveau period during the beginning of the 20th century and depicts fantastic, real forms and structures found in animal and plant life." Many artists of the era, such as French glass designers Emile Galle and Rene Lalique, kept a copy of Haeckel's illustrations at home. French architect Rene Binet incorporated forms of Radiolarians in his work on the Porte Monumentale at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Dutch architect Henrick Petrus Berlage designed a chandelier based on Discomedusae jellyfish. German photographer Karl Blossfeld also explicitly… Read More

Rare set of three important French 17th century heraldic volumes by Moreau, Bara and Scohier bound together, all in contemporary hand colour. With over 600 woodblocks of heraldic shields or blazons in original hand colour.Three title pages printed in red and black with hand-coloured woodcut vignettes.Le Tableau des Armoiries de FrancePhilippes Moreau, Paris, 1609Title page, 72 pages of text with 10 hand-coloured gold coronets in textLe Blason des ArmoiriesJerome Bara, Paris, 1628Title page, 199 pages of text with 586 hand-coloured woodcuts of escutcheons. With a general description of the elements of heraldry and examples of the coats of arms of historical and fictional characters, including Prester John, Alexander the Great, Knights of the Round Table, figures from Greek and Roman mythology, European kings and aristocracy.L'estat et Comportmente des ArmesJean Scohier, Paris, 1630Title page, 95 pages of text with 112 hand-coloured woodcuts of heraldic shieldsEvidence of repairs to paper damage and… Read More

Rare set of 20 parts from the first four series of Leon Sault's fancy-dress or cos-play magazine. Each part (or livraison) with 3 hand-coloured lithographs and 3 lithographs on a particular theme for a total of 118 plates, 58 hand-coloured (missing two plates, Jeune Homme 1:5 and Polonaise 2:5).The designs can be split into allegorical and traditional costumes. Allegorical includes games, the four seasons, the elements (fire, air, snow), winged creatures, fruits and flowers, etc. Traditional includes national costumes of China, Japan, England, Scotland, Scandinavia, Alsace and Brittany as well as French historical costumes from the reign of Henri III, Henri IV, Louis XVI, the French Revolution, Napoleonic, etc.With the popularity of masquerade balls at the court of Empress Eugenie in the Second Empire, demand for unique fancy dress costumes increased. Sault published his fancy dress designs in the magazine L'Art du Travestissements from the 1880s and began selling his unique stage costumes to the… Read More

Very good copy of this classic Swedish flora with botanical illustrations by Johan Palmstruch, the "Swedish Sowerby."Complete in three volumes: with 519 chromolithographs (Vol. I, II) and text volume with 420 pages of descriptive text (Vol. III).Lithographed by Gen. Stab. Lit. Anst. (Generalstabens Litografiiska Anstalt), the offiicial lithographer to the Ministry of Defense, Stockholm. Carl Axel Magnus Lindman (1856-1928) was Professor of Botany at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet). The chromolithographs were based on Johan Palmstruch's Svensk botanik (1802-1829).Palmstruch (1770-1811) based his famous national flora Svensk botanik on the Flora Danica and James Sowerby's English Botany. His illustrations have been called "the best pictures of plants ever produced in Sweden."Three-quarter green leather faded to brown, art-nouveau gilt title on spine and front board, marble boards scuffed, botanical chromolithographs clean and bright.

Very good set of this fine British flora, the first to rival James Sowerby's English Botany from 1791. Complete with 509 hand-coloured copperplates engraved by Charles Mathews after botanical illustrations by Mathews, Isaac Russel (an Oxford glass painter) and William Alfred Delamotte. The plates were reputedly hand-coloured by Baxter's daughters and daughter-in-law. George Claridge Druce in The Flora of Berkshire, 1897, writes, "The plates of this work, although of unequal merit, are in many cases very excellent and possess a special value, because each figure is drawn from an individual plant, the locality or origin of which is usually stated."First issued in parts from 1832, and later in book form from 1834. This set states Second Edition, 1834, on the title page of Vol. I, but all other volumes are 1st edition: Vol. II 1835, Vol. III 1837, Vol. IV 1839, Vol. V 1840, and Vol. VI 1843. Six volumes bound in 3.William Baxter (1787-1871), was a British botanist, author, curator and head gardener of the… Read More

Good copy of Barclay's scarce book of anatomy with 36 fine copperplate engravings and descriptive textNew edition in quarto size after the first folio-size edition published 1819-1820. A third edition was published in 1829 by Barclay's partner Robert Knox who famously purchased cadavers from the grave-robbers turned serial killers Burke and Hare.With an engraved portrait of the author, title page, 7-page preface, and 36 engravings, each with several pages of descriptive text.Most of the plates were engraved based on previous works: Bernhard Siegfried Albinus for the human skeletons, George Stubbs for the horse skeletons, Jean-Joseph Sue for the individual bones and child skeletons. The last three unnumbered plates by Robert Kaye Greville from specimens in Dr. Barclay's Museum are a prospectus for a work on vertebrate skeletons which engraver Edward Mitchell intended to publish. They include a striking image of an elephant skeleton ridden by a skeletal mahout!John Barclay (1758-1826), was one of the… Read More

Very good complete copy of Hermann Köhler's celebrated German study of medicinal botanyWith 283 dynamic botanical chromolithographs mainly signed W.M. (Walther Otto Muller), with others by Carl Friedrich Schmidt and K. or E. Gunther. The botanical plates are justly famous for their attractive design, with all parts of the flower, leaf, branch, fruit and seed displayed over the entire plate.This monumental German herbal was written principally by Hermann Adolph Köhler, edited after his death by Gustav Pabst, and published by Franz Eugen Köhler from 1887-1890. The third volume was published later in 1898 with the subtitle Latest medicinal plants and confusions (Neueste Medizinalpflanzen und Verwechslungen), revised by Max Vogtherr and M. Gürke, curators at the Botanical Museum in Berlin.With an advert for the fourth volume with another 100 plates (never published).Hermann Adolph Köhler (1834-1879) was a Prussian German physician and chemist. He was awarded the Iron Cross for his work as a… Read More

Very good complete copy of this last great English medical botany of the 19th century.With 306 fine hand-coloured botanical plates, several double-page, some finished with gum arabic, drawn from nature and lithographed by David Blair. Each dynamic plate filled to the edge with details of the plant's stalk, leaf, fruit, seed, branch and flower.Each plate with several pages of text including description, habitat, collection and commerce, general character and composition, medical properties and uses.Robert Bentley (1821-1893) was an English botanist and pharmacologist. He was professor in botany at King's College from 1859, and became a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 1874. Henry Trimen (1843-1896) was a London-born botanist who became director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Ceylon (Botanical Gardens of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka) from 1879-95. He also published The Flora of Ceylon (1893) David Blair (1820-1899?), was a botanical artist and lithographer who also worked on Transactions of the… Read More

A delightful Victorian botanical book by an aristocratic amateur artist living in IndiaTinted title page, 12 chromolithographic plates: preface printed in gold with botanical border, and 11 fine botanical plates each with text leaf printed in gold. Very fine botanical plates including group of flowers from Bombay, wild flowers from Mahableshwar, tulip tree, tuberose, Asian bleeding heart, jungle geranium, Bengal rose, crepe myrtle, tamarind, passionflower, lotus and the extinct Magnolia pterocarpa.Emily Eden (1797-1869) was an English aristocrat, writer, novelist and traveler who accompanied her brother George, Lord Auckland, to India from 1836 to 1842 when he was Governor-General. While Emily was sketching flowers, George launched the Afghan Campaign in 1839, "one of the worst disasters in British military history." Emily published books of travel writings Up the Country, 1866 and Letters from India, 1872, novels The Semi-Detached House 1859, and the Semi-Attached Couple 1860.She also privately… Read More

Good copy of a herbal, possibly German from the late 16th centuryLacks title page, first 24 pages of text, first two pages of Latin index, pages 49-64, 321-328 and 385~391.With over 620 woodblock engravings of medical plants, herbs, fruits and vegetables in contemporary hand-colour. No text, but names of plants in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German at the top of the plate. Index in Latin (missing A to D, starts with Eruum), Italian, French, Spanish and German.Perhaps a later pirate copy of Adam Lonicer's Herbarum, arborum, fruticum, frumentorum ac leguminum, Egenolph, Frankfurt, 1546. Lonicer (1528-1586) married printer Christian Egenolph's daughter and became a partner in the firm. From 1551, the firm published herbals under Lonicer's name.Early editions had the plant names printed Latin in Roman and Italic type, and German in Schwabacher type. This copy has up to six plant names in Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Greek.Annotated with ink manuscript captions in English by… Read More