PHYTHANTHOZA ICONOGRAPHIA. Pl. 808.
Regensburg: H. Lentz and H.G. Neubauer, et al. c. 1745. First edition.
Mezzotint engraving, printed in color, finished by hand, 12.75 x 8.25 inches, platemark (approx); 15.25 x 9.5 inches, overall (approx). Left edge retains sewing stabs, neatly disbound in some earlier century, else a very vibrant example of a hand colored mezzotint engraving. The individual botanicals in this plate are: a. Phaseolus flore puniceo, b. Phaseolus major, c. Phaseolus orthocaulus, d. Phaseolus Indicus, e. Phaseolus major seu Faba purgatrioc. Very good.
Drawn from Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s Phytanthoza Iconographia, this dazzling print is part of a riotous celebration of plants, trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers, fruits, mushrooms, and trailing vines. Printed in color and delicately finished by hand, the series stands among the earliest triumphs of color printing and marks the first published collection to feature the work of George Dionysus Ehret, one of the eighteenth century’s most admired botanical artists. Other artists/engravers included in this work are Bartholomaus Seuter, Johann Elias Ridinger, and Johann Jakob Haid. In Great Flower Books, Satcheverall Sitwell refers to this set as the “pioneering work of botanical prints engraved to be inked in color.”
NISSEN2126. DUNTHORNE 327. SITWELL/BLUNT, Great Flower Books, p. 151, 166.
.Price: $275.00