Royle, John Forbes

2 volumes, folio (14 5/8 x 10 5/8 ins.; 365 x 265 mm). Half-titles. Hand-colored aquatint frontispiece view of the Himalayas by J. Clark after Lt.Col. R. Smith, 1 handcolored plate of a geological section of the Himalayas, 3 uncolored lithographic plates of fossils, hand-colored lithographed plan of the botanic garden at Saharanpore and 96 hand-colored natural-history plates, drawn on stone by Maxim Gauci and others, colored by John Clark[e] or Mr.Barclay, after Vishupersaud, Miss Drake, W. Saunders, Luchmun Sing, J.T. Hart and others, printed by Graf & Soret (comprising: 2 plates of mammals, 2 plates of birds, 2 plates of insects, and 90 botanical plates), intermittent spotting to text. Expertly bound to style in half green morocco over period green cloth covered boards.

BM(NH) IV, p.1758; Bradley Bibliography I, p.472; Great Flower Books (1990) p.134; Massachusetts Horticultural Society Library p.272; M.Rix. The Art of the Plant World p.183; Nissen BBI 1690; Stafleu & Cowan IV, 9734.

First edition of this "pioneering ecological study" (Rix) on the trees, shrubs and flowers of the Himalayan region of the Indian sub-continent, illustrated with delightful images after Vishnuperand: the greatest Indian botanical artist of his time.

The majority of the plates are after Vishnupersaud (or Vishnu Prasad), "the most talented of the native Indian [botanical] artists" (Blunt). He was employed by many of the most important plant collectors and botanists of the time, including Nathaniel Wallich and Robert Wight, and unfortunately, he remains one of only a handful of early 19th-century Indian botanical artists whose names are known - this in itself is an indication of the high esteem in which his work was held by western botanists at the time.  An examination of the large collection of his original drawings still held by the India Office Library and the Kew Herbarium confirms his reputation amongst his contemporaries. The transfer of the drawings onto stone was carried out by the greatest of the early lithographers of botanical subjects: the Maltese born Maxim Gauci, and, unusually, Forbes also gives the names of the colourists: Mr. Clarke (probably John Clark who colored the plates in Wallich's Plantae Asiaticae) and Mr. Barclay.