Lot n° 18
Estimation :
6000 - 8000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 6 292EUR
BLACKWELL Elizabeth. A Curious herbal containing five hundre - Lot 18
BLACKWELL Elizabeth. A Curious herbal containing five hundred cuts of the most useful plants, which are not used in the practice of physick. Engraved on folio copper plates after drawings taken from the life by Elizabeth Blackwell... London, John Nourse, 1739 ; 2 volumes in one very large in-folio volume of [4] ff., 63 ff. text, plates 1-252, [2] ff. ; [3] ff. plates 253-500, ff. text 64-125, [2] ff. first-half 19th-century binding, brown half calf with corners, 6-rib spine (a little rubbed), entirely untrimmed.
A masterly work produced entirely by a woman who, with the proceeds of the edition, hoped to free her husband, incarcerated in prison for debts.
Engraved throughout, it is composed as follows: title; dedication to Richard Meade with vignette; approbation with vignette; compliment of six specialists with vignette and French translation: "Having seen a fairly large number of drawings on which to engrave the plates... have conceived an advantageous idea of the author's ability"; and 500 PLATES DRAWN AFTER NATURE AT CHELSEA BOTANICAL GARDEN OF PLANTS, TREES AND FLOWERS AND ENGRAVED BY ELIZABETH BLACKWELL.
A rare uncolored copy, in which the design and values of the etching alone are more clearly discernible. This one is also at full margins, i.e. entirely untrimmed.
A contemporary reader below each engraving translates the plant names into French and provides medical recommendations.
At the head, the signature of Félix Randon de Grolier, a member of Laplace's expedition on the "Artemisia", where he was an observer and "a privileged witness who was interested in everything".
A complete and very pure copy. The one in the Hunt Botanical Library is incomplete, according to that institution's catalog.
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