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COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 1
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 2
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 3
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 4
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 5
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 6
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 7
COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990 image 8
Lot 22•

COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS
Banks' Florilegium, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990

Fine Books and Manuscripts
29 March 2023, 13:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

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COOK (JAMES) and JOSEPH BANKS

Banks' Florilegium. A Publication in Thirty-Four Parts of Seven Hundred and Thirty-Eight Copperplate Engravings of Plants Collected on Captain James Cook's First Voyage Round the World in H.M.S. Endeavour, 35 parts in 11 vol., NUMBER 42 OF 100 COPIES, 743 copper-engraved plates, tissue guards, all printed "à la poupée" in up to 17 colours (with additional watercolour touches), from the original plates by Daniel MacKenzie, G. Sibelius, Gabriel Smith, and others after Sydney Parkinson, Frederick Polydore, John Frederick Miller, James Miller, John Cleverly and Thomas Burgis, quarter green morocco gilt by A.W. Lumsden, black morocco title labels on spines, t.e.g., elephant folio (700 x 550mm.), Alecto Historical Editions, 1980-1990

Footnotes

THE FIRST COMPLETE PUBLICATION OF THE MAGNIFICENT BOTANICAL ENGRAVINGS, TAKEN FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWINGS MADE BY SYDNEY PARKINSON DURING CAPTAIN COOK'S FIRST VOYAGE - IN A RARE FULLY BOUND FORMAT.

Between 1771 and 1784, Joseph Banks both bankrolled and supervised the meticulous production of 743 copperplate images. A set of proofs was printed in 1784 but, probably due to the huge expense of the project, no formal publication of the set was made in Banks' lifetime. Shortly before his death in 1820 he bequeathed the plates to the British Museum. In 1905 a limited edition of the Australian plant images was issued, printing the plates from lithographic stones prepared from the eighteenth century proofs, and in 1973 a selection of thirty plates etched in black and white. This Alecto edition, ten years in the making, was the first time the whole set appeared printed from the original copperplates, and has been described as the most important achievement in the graphic arts in the twentieth century.

The plates are printed in colours à la poupée, a process in which "up to ten colours are worked directly into the single plate before each print is pulled, with additional water-colour touches in special cases" (Prospectus).

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