Jean Claude Mic𝕴hel Mordaunt𒆙 de Launay, and Jean Louis Auguste Loiseleur-Deslongchamps

Herbier général de l'amateur, contenant la description, l'histoire, les propriétés et la culture des végétaux utiles et agréables. Paris: Audot, [1810]-1827

FIRST EDITION, LARGE PAPER COPY, 8 volumes, 4to (290 x 210mm.), 575 fine handcoloured engraved plates (unnumbered, although the text assigns numbers to the images; 6 folding) after Pancrace Bessa, Pierre Joseph Redouté, and Pierre Antoine Poiteau by P. F. Barrois, S. Goulet, A. F. Dennel, Bigant, Lejuene, and others, contemporary calf gilt by Bibolet, covers paneled with borders tooled in black, gilt, and blind, spines gilt with black labels, minor wear to extremities of one or two spines

An attractive large-paper set of perhaps the best of the small-format French flower books, intended, as noted in the introduction for "la bibliothèque du savant, de l’homme de gout, dans le cabinet de l’amateur, et dans l’atelier de l’artisté". The illuminating introduction also provides a historical and geographical survey of all the most important botanical works published in Europe and maintains that the hand-colouring of the plates in the present work is more accurate than the colour-printed plates in contemporaneous French botanical publications. The author further asserts that because the text of Herbier général de l'amateur is much more discursive, the work is also superior to such English periodicals as William Curtis's Botanical Magazine.

LITERATURE:

Cleveland Herbal 795; Great Flower Books, p. 85; Nissen BBI 2323; Stafleu TL2 4952