2 vols, folio (390 x 260 mm), pp [xxiv, including frontispiece and two coats-of-arms] 220; [xx, including frontispiece and three coats-of-arms] 224 [4] with two engraved frontispieces, five engraved coats-of-arms, and 225 engraved plates on 222 leaves; some very minor occasional spotting, a couple of small marginal tears, wormhole in blank lower margin of a few preliminary leaves in first vol, generally a very fresh, attractive copy, without the usual browning, in contemporary vellum, a little rubbed. £18,500
First edition. A magnificent monument to the Amsterdam Physic Garden, of which Jan Commelin was director, at a period when it was undergoing substantial enlargement, primarily as a result of plant introduction from the Dutch East and West Indies and South Africa. This in turn was the result of the enterprise of the Dutch Indies Company. Many of the plants described were the first specimens introduced in Europe. The plates are engraved after paintings by Johann and Maria Moninck and others.
‘From 1686 onward, water-colours were made of the exotic plants in the Hortus, resulting in the first eight volumes of the Moninckx Atlas. This collection served as the main source [of illustrations]... for Commelin. The rapid expansion of the collection of the Hortus medicus soon made it one of the richest collections of exotic plants in Europe. Authors dealing with exotic botany frequently used the Commelin volumes as a major source of reference’ (Wijnands, The botany of the Commelins).
‘The first volume, on the plants of the East and West Indies, was Jan Commelin’s most important contribution to botanical knowledge; it was brought out posthumously by his nephew Caspar. The second volume was by Caspar Commelin and contained an enlargement of some of the notes in Jan’s book, with further notes on African plants’ (Hunt).
In volume one figures 42, 43, and 44 are on one plate; in volume two figure 4 has two plates, on the verso and recto of the leaf; this is the only occasion of plates printed on both sides in the work. This copy has several handwritten labels loosely inserted, giving the binomial names of the plants; on one is the date 1821.
Nissen BBI 389; Great Flower Books p. 54; Dunthorne 81; Hunt 399; Stafleu and Cowan 1187
GBP 18500.00
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