Lot 80C email save

CURTIS, William (1746-1799). Flora Londinensis: or

Sign In to see what this sold for

London: printed for and sold by the Author and B. White, [1775-]1777-1798. 2 volumes, folio (470 x 285 mm). Engraved oval title vignette to volume I, 435 engraved plates on 432 leaves, all finely hand-colored, after Sydenham Edwards, James Sowerby and William Kilburn. Contemporary diced russia by Charles Hering, covers with wide decorative border including a roll with oak leaves, acorns and clover leaves, stylised flower-head cornrpieces, spines in seven compartments with raised bands, the bands highlighted with gilt decorative rolls, lettered in three compartments, the others with large individual botanical tools, gilt turn-ins, green sugar-paper pastedowns and and free endpapers, g.e. Condition: occasional light spotting, final plate in both vols. creased; rebacked, majority of the original spines laid down, joints worn, rubbed and scuffed, rear free endpapers creased. Provenance: Lord Battersea (armorial bookplate, dated 1893); Doris Duke (sale Christie's New York, 3-5 June 2004, lot 283, sold $21,500). first edition of what is essentially the first british color-plate national flora: a fine copy internally of the first edition, with the first issue title (giving the author's address as Gracechurch Street). The work was launched with the support of Lord Bute with the first part appearing in 1775. For ten years Curtis "continued perseveringly at his congenial but unremunerative task, [and] by 1787, the results of his labour were two splendid folio volumes and a deficit that made the continuance of his venture impossible. He understood the cause of the trouble and saw the remedy: if his clients refused to buy folio pictures of the unassuming plants that grew by the wayside, he would win their patronage with octavo engravings of the bright flowers that filled their gardens. Thus, in 1787, the The Botanical Magazine was born" (Blunt The Art of Botanical Illustration 1994, p. 212). The immediate success of the magazine allowed Curtis to continue the publication of the Flora Londinensis. Dunthorne p.87; Great Flower Books (1990) p. 88; Henrey III, 595; Hunt 650; Nissen BBI 439; Stafleu & Cowan 1286.(2)

View Bloomsbury Auctions next auction.

Similar lots up for auction