Martyn, Thomas | Exquisite depictions of shells collected during Captain Cook's three voyages

Martyn, Thomas

The Universal Conchologist , exhibiting the Figure of Every Known Shell Accurately Drawn and Painted after Nature: with A New Systematic Arrangement by the Author / Le Conchologiste Universel, montrant la figure de chaque coquille aujourdhui connue: Soigneusement dessinée, et peinte d'après nature. Le tout arrangé selon le système de l'auteur. London: Thomas Martyn (sold at his House), 1789 [‒1792]

Folio (343 x 275 mm). Engraved title-page, as above, in English and French, engraved secondary title-page in English and French (Figures if Non Descript Shells, Collected in the Different Voyages to the South Sea since 1764 / Les figures des coquilles jusqu’à presént inconnues recueillies en divers voyages à la Mer du Sud depuis l’année 1764), engraved dedication to the King, 2 leaves of engraved Explanatary Table, all letterpress text in facing pages of English and French, etched outline frontispiece superbly handcolored to resemble an original watercolor and printed within a gilt-embossed Greek key border, 80 very fine handcolored engraved plates probably by J. Basire, J. Carwitham, and J. Smith, numbered by a contemporary hand and all within a double-rule pen-and-ink border, one (of 2) engraved numismatic plates by I. Barlow; engraved titles just shaved at fore-edge costing paraphs only, plates with occasional browning or spotting. Contemporary emblematic straight grain red morocco by L. Staggemeier and Welcher with their ticket, covers with gilt-ruled borders of a Greek-key-roll and gilt-dotted rule, smooth spine richly gilt with emblematic and classical tools and two green morocco lettering-pieces, marbled endpapers, gilt edges; extremities rubbed, a few stains. 

"South Seas" issue, derived from the first edition of 1784‒1787. Little is known about this scarce extract-edition of Martyn's encyclopedic work on shells, which concentrates, in the words of the section-title, on "Figures of Non Descript Shells, Collected in the Different Voyages to the South Seas since the Year 1764." Freeman notes that "the bibliography is complex," and only a handful of copies of this edition are recorded in the auction records—none since the similarly bound Glenbow Museum copy was sold by us almost thirty years ago. 

Most of the shells figured—from New Zealand, New South Wales, New Holland, Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands, the Friendly Islands (Tonga), the northwest coast of America, and other Pacific locales—are taken from the cabinet of the author, who had bought and bartered many shells procured during the three Cook voyages. The quality of the plates in this luxury issue, finely handcolored in imitation of original watercolors, is of a much higher order than in the ordinary issues.

A very fine copy with an intriguing, if partly notorious, provenance. Frederick DuCane Godman was one of the leading English naturalists of the Victorian era and, with Osbert Salvin, the editor of the monumental Biologia Centrali-Americana. John du Pont was a naturalist, sportsman, and collector with a particular interest in conchology; he donated his collection of some one million shells to the Delaware Museum of Natural History, which he founded. But all of du Pont's other achievements have been obscured by his murder of Olympic gold medalist wrestler Dave Schultz in 1996.

Two single-leaf prospectuses for the work, dated 1787, are laid in, one in English, one in French.

REFERENCE:

Forbes 1: 176; cf. Freeman 2499; Nissen ZBI 2728

PROVENANCE:

Frederick DuCane Godman (armorial bookplate) — John Eleuthère du Pont de Nemours (armorial bookplate)