Schlegel, Hermann and A. H. Verster de Wulverhorst

Traité de fauconnerie. Leiden and Düsseldorf: Arnz & Co., 1844-1853



Broadsheets (27 3/8 x 20 in.; 695 x 508 mm). Tinted lithographed title-page, mounted on india paper, incorporating 11 vignettes illustrative of falconry after and by J. B. Sondeland, 12 fine handcolored lithographed plates of falcons after J. Wolf (backgrounds after C. Scheuren and G. Saal) by Wendel, 2 fine handcolored lithographed plates of falconry accoutrements after and by Portman and van Wouw, 2 tinted lithographed plates, mounted on india paper, of  heron hawking after Sonderland by J. Dillmann; lacking four leaves of preliminaries (dedication, preface, I & VI of captions), 2 other leaves of preliminaries creased, plate guards renewed. Antique forest green half morocco, gold-stamped title label on upper cover, spine gilt.

Ayer/Zimmer 554; Fine Bird Books 105; Harting 194; Landwehr 174; Nissen IVB 832; Schwerdt 2:150

First edition of "the finest work on falconry which has ever been produced; not only on account of the beauty of the plates, wherein the hawks are depicted life-size and of the natural colours, but also for the general accuracy of the letterpress" (Harting). Schwerdt concurs that "the life size illustrations of birds are by far the finest ever produced in any book on falconry. It is impossible to describe the mellowness and beauty of the colourings."

Wolf's plates for this work established his reputation as a bird artist and led to commissions from many other of the most notes ornithological authors of the day, including John Gould and D. G. Elliot. Gould, in fact, owned Wolf's original watercolor for the plate of the Greenland falcon.