Trew, Christoph Jakob

Plantæ selectæ quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortus curiosorum.  [Nuremberg,] 1750–73



10 parts in one volume, folio (20  1/2  x 14 in.; 521 x 355 mm).  3 fine mezzotint portraits of Trew, Johann Jacob Haid and Georg Dionysius Ehret, 10 engraved section titles heightened in red and gold, 100 fine handcolored engraved plates after G. D. Ehret by J. J. Haid and J. E. Haid, each with the first word of the caption heightened in gilt.  Contemporary calf, spine elaborately gilt in eight compartments, covers with Greek key roll tool, marbled endleaves; backstrip laid down, some wear at extremities.



 

Anita Peek Gilger (sold Christie's New York, 14 October 2003, lot 102)

Blunt 149; Cleveland/Johnson 429; Dunthorne 309; Great Flower Books 144; Hunt 539; Nissen BBI 1997; Pritzel 9499; Stafleu 15.131

An exceptionally crisp and clean copy of Trew and Ehret's celebrated collaboration, magnificently handcolored.

The Plantæ selectæ is considered by Nissen to be the finest botanical work ever printed in Germany.  Dr. Trew, physician at Nuremberg and amateur botanist, admired the talent and skill of his younger countryman, Georg D. Ehret, a gardener and flower painter.  This work is their major collaboration, although Ehret did contribute several drawings to Trew's Hortus nitidissimis.  Ehret is one of the great painters of flowering plants in the eighteenth century and all 100 plates of the Plantæ selectæ were painted by him.  The work sometimes occurs with a general title, lacking the "Decade" titles, all of which are present in this copy.  The mezzotint portraits of Ehret, Trew and the engraver Haid are finely wrought. The letterpress sheets which we printed in folio halfsheeets.  Dr Trew dies in 1769, leaving the last three parts uncompleted.  The work was finished by Benedict Christian Vogel, Professor of Botany at the University of Altdorf.