Carl Ludwig Blume | Collection des orchidées, Amsterdam, 1858, folio, contemporary green half morocco

Carl Ludwig Blume

Collection des orchidées les plus remarquables de l'archipel Indien et du Japon. Amsterdam: C.G. Sulpke, 1858

Folio (454 x 290mm.), hand-coloured lithographed frontispiece, 70 further lithographed plates (of which 56 hand-coloured and one double-page), contemporary green half morocco, spine gilt with raised bands in seven compartments, red morocco label, top edge gilt, occasional light spotting, some offsetting of plates onto text, rebacked retaining original spine, extremities slightly rubbed

THE FIRST MAJOR WORK ON THE ORCHIDS OF THE DUTCH EAST INDIES AND JAPAN. A FINE COPY OF THIS IMPORTANT AND RARE WORK.

Most of the beautiful illustrations are after drawings by A.J. Wendel and are lithographed by G. Severeyns, the best botanical lithographer of the time. "This work was elaborately illustrated by some of the most beautiful colored plates and most meticulous floral analyses to be found among the literature of the Old World orchids ... indispensable aids to investigators of the orchids of the entire East Indies." (Reinikka, History of Orchids, pp. 147-148). 

Almost identical with and published at the same time as the first volume of the supplement to Blume's Flora Javae, published in Latin. Blume was director of the Buitenzorg Botanic Garden and later became director of the State Herbarium at Leyden. For the description of the orchids of Japan, Blume was helped by von Siebold who gave him drawings of Japanese orchids made by Japanese botanists. "J'ai profité des communications de M. De Siebold pour comparer de même les 'Orchidées du Japon' avec celles de l'Archipel Indien. La tâche était difficile; mais j'eus encore ici la bonne fortune de pouvoir m'aider de dessins originaux dus au pinceau de botanistes japonais aussi instruits qu'habiles en leur art, que M. de Siebold voulut bien mettre à ma disposition" (from the introduction).

LITERATURE:

Cordier, Bibl. Japonica, 538; Nissen BBI 175; Reinikka, History of Orchids, pp. 147-148

PROVENANCE:

Borough of Portsmouth Free Public Library, bookplate (noting "this book was presented by Rev. H. Hawkes B.A.") and library stamp to margin of one page