6 Oct 2009
11:00 BST
London, New Bond Street
A Selection of Books from the Collection of Richard Hatchwell; India and Beyond - Travel and Photography
Back to auction 16854
A Selection of Books from the Collection of Richard Hatchwell; India and Beyond - Travel and Photography
Back to auction 16854
MATTIOLI (PIETRO ANDREA)
Commentarii in libros sex Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de medica materia, title-page with the large Valgrisi device COLOURED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND AND HEIGHTENED WITH GOLD, 5 hand-coloured woodcut initials and 2 further devices, full-page woodcut portrait of the author with face delicately coloured, 1001 woodcuts of flowers, grasses, animals and genre scenes, over 500 of them FULLY HAND-COLOURED and some 300 partially so, supplementary 'De ratione distilandi aquas ex omnibus plantis' with 6 fine hand-coloured large woodcuts of distilling apparatus, some light spotting, title slightly soiled, a few brown stains on preliminary leaves, 2I2 torn without loss, a few other tears in margins (one just touching a woodcut), last page with some splashes of blue paint in margin above device, without leaf following first gathering (called for by Adams but absent in Hunt and other copies), early marginal notes in red ink on pages 71 and 640, IN A CONTEMPORARY SOUTH GERMAN BINDING of brown calf over oak boards, with partially bevelled edges, the covers with 9 panels divided by black lines and decorative gilt borders, outer gilt border incorporating tools of a mask, an eagle, leaf srays etc., the 4 smaller corner panels with a large gilt quatrefoil containing a tool of Veronica's cloth, the large centre panels with gilt centrepieces added later, upper cover dated 1567 in gilt, the lower cover with 2 of the smaller panels containing recumbent cherubs resting on a skull with a church in the background, rebacked preserving most of original gilt spine in 6 compartments within raised bands, decorated with axe-heads etc., the upper and lower compartments with remnants of old paper labels, traces of clasps and cornerpieces, laborate gilt gauffered edges decorated with quatrefoils, fleurs-de-lys, axe-heads etc, and dated 1567 on fore-edge [Adams D672; Hunt 94; Nissen BBI 1305; Prtizel 5985; Brunet III, 1538], folio (360 x 248mm.), Venice, Valgrisi, 1565
Sold for
£54,000
inc. premium
Footnotes
- A REMARKABLE HAND-COLOURED COPY, IN A CONTEMPORARY GERMAN BINDING AND FROM THE LIBRARIES OF CAMERARIUS AND CARL FRIEDRICH VON MARTIUS. This is the first enlarged edition, described by Hunt as "the most valued for its completenes". It was presumably presented to, or bound for, Joachim Camerarius the younger (1534-1598), State Physician at Nuremberg and founder of the magnificent garden. It later belonged to Johann David Schopf (1752-1800, German scientist and author of two volumes of travels in America), Ernest William Martius (apothecary), and then his son Karl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794-1868, botanist and author of Historia naturalis palmarum and the Flora Brasiliensis). The volume has the latter's label on front paste-down and an inserted leaf before the title with an autograph description of the book's provenance ("... obis exemplar hujus libri, quod ex possessione Joach. Camerarii fuit, et coloribus scite pictum est").
Category: Books / Books, Maps and Manuscripts
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