Ehret, Dionysius, Christoph Jakob Trew, and Benedict Christian Vogel | First edition of one of the greatest 18th-century botanical works

Ehret, Dionysius, Christoph Jakob Trew, and Benedict Christian Vogel

Plantae Selectae. [Nuremberg]: 1750-1773

10 parts in one volume, broadsheet folio (510 x 360 mm). One engraved title (of 10), heightened in red and gold, 100 hand-colored engraved plates by Johann Jacob Haid and Johann Elias Haid after Georg Dionysius Ehret, each with the first word of the caption heightened in gold; lacks engraved general title and engraved titles for parts 1-4 and 6-10, lacking text and 3 engraved portraits, title lightly soiled. 18th-century French cat's paw sheep gilt, green morocco lettering-piece, patterned endpapers, edges gilt; worn.

[Bound in at end]: 15 hand-colored engraved plates (including one duplicate) from: Trew, Christoph Jakob. Hortus Nitidissimis omnem per annum superbiens floribus, sive amoenissimorum florum imagines ... Der das ganze Jahr hindurch im schoensten Flohr stehende Blumen-Garten oder Abbildungen der lieblichsten Blumen ... Nuremberg: Fleischmann (vol. I), and Adam Ludwig Wirsing (vol. II and III), 1750-1768-1772-1786. See: Nissen BBI 1995.

First edition of one of the greatest 18^th-century botanical works. Trew and Ehret's celebrated collaboration, magnificently colored by hand. The Plantae selectae is considered by Nissen to be the finest botanical work printed in Germany. Trew, physician at Nuremberg and amateur botanist, admired the talent and skill of his younger countryman, Georg 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 Plantae selectae were painted by him. Trew died in 1769, leaving the last three parts uncompleted. The work was finished by Benedict Christian Vogel, Professor of Botany at the University of Altdorf. The work was conceived as early as 1742 when Trew wrote to Christian Thran in Carlsruhe: "Every year I receive some beautifully painted exotic plants (by Ehret) and have already more than one hundred of them, which with other pieces executed by local artists, should later on, Deo volante, constitute an appendicem to Weinmann’s publication but will, I hope, find a better reception than his." In 1748, agreement was reached that Johann Jacob Haid from Augsburg should provide the engravings, and the first part appeared in 1750. Trew died before the text of the last three decuriae was written and before the illustrations of Decuriae IX and X were printed. The work was completed by Benedict Christian Vogel. In a letter in Latin to Trew, Linnaeus expressed his opinion: "The miracles of our century in the natural sciences are your work of Ehret’s plants, Edward’s work of birds and Roesel’s of insects, nothing equal was seen in the past and will be in your future." (Gerta Calmann, Ehret Flower Painter Extraordinary, 1977, 9.97).

REFERENCES:

Dunthorne 309; Great Flower Books, p.78; Hunt 539; Nissen BBI 1997; Pritzel 9499; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 15.131. 31

PROVENANCE:

Tordreau (engraved armorial bookplate on fly leaf) — Peter Jay Sharp (his sale in these rooms, 13 January 1994, lot 3)