Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de

Plantarum succulentarum historia.  Histoire des plantes grasses ... avec leurs figures en couleurs.  Paris: A. J. Dugour et Durand, An VII (1799) [–1804?]



2 volumes, 4to (13  1/2  x 9  1/4  in.; 343 x 230 mm).  Title-page in vol. 1 only, 167 fine hand-finished, color-printed stipple-engraved plates after Pierre Joseph Redouté; small inked MHS stamp on plates, minimal spotting and foxing, plates numbered in pencil in a nineteenth-century hand.  Tree calf gilt, spines gilt-decorated and with black morocco lettering-pieces, marbled endleaves; worn and rubbed. 

Acquired by the MHS in 1873

Dunthorne 241; Great Flower Books p. 53; Nissen, BBI 321; Pritzel 1463; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 983

Plantarum succulentarum historia. Histoire des plantes grasses ... avec leurs figures en couleurs. Paris: A. J. Dugour et Durand, An VII (1799) [–1804?] 2 volumes, 4to (13 1/2 x 9 1/4 in.; 343 x 230 mm). Title-page in vol. 1 only, 167 fine hand-finished, color-printed stipple-engraved plates after Pierre Joseph Redouté; small inked MHS stamp on plates, minimal spotting and foxing, plates numbered in pencil in a nineteenth-century hand. Tree calf gilt, spines gilt-decorated and with black morocco lettering-pieces, marbled endleaves; worn and rubbed.
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First edition (?) of the first publication to feature Redouté's name on the title-page and the first to utilize his recently developed color-printing technique.  "A most important work, and from the print point of view of technique and of pure colour printing, Redouté's masterpiece" (Dunthorne).

Plantes grasses is "one of the nightmares of botanical bibliography" (Stafleu) and is "nearly always incomplete" (Dunthorne).  The de Belder and Martin copies both contained 144 plates and bore the Didot imprint.  The present copy with the Dugour imprint has a single title-page and preface in volume 1 and a table of plates for the first 20 parts at the end of the second volume; no half-titles are present.  This copy was probably issued as a completed volume, comprising parts 1 through 24.

A clean, bright copy of an important work by Redouté.