Switzerland, Botany - Candolle, Augustin Pyramus de
£2,750
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 19 June 2018 at 12:00 BST
Description
Plantes Rares du Jardin de Genève. Geneva: Librairie de J. Barbezat & Comp., 1829. First edition, 4to, 4 parts in one volume, folio (360 x 273 mm.), [vi], 92, [i]; half-title, 24 stipple-engraved plates, all printed in colours and some finished by hand, after Heyland (21), Mlle. Car. Chuit (2) and Anspach (1) by Heyland (7), Millenet (11), Anspach (4), Bovet (1) and Bouvier (1), printed by Tattegrain, original printed boards (371 x 290mm.), uncut, rebacked with cloth, boards a little dust-soiled and scuffed at foot, internally mostly very clean
Footnote
Note: FIRST EDITION, second "consolidated" issue, with the title dated 1829, otherwise identical to the first issue. This rare work was originally published in four fascicules between 1825 and 1826 or 1827.
The present rare work was published a few years after the Swiss botanist Candolle settled in Geneva where he became director of the ‘Jardin Botanique’. Candolle's main focus was botany but he also contributed to related fields such as phytogeography, agronomy, paleontology, medical botany, and economic botany.
Candolle proposed a "natural" method of plant classification as opposed to the artificial Linnaean method, a classification system which he outlined first in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique (Elementary Theory of Botany, 1813), the principle of which was taxa do not fall along a linear scale; they are discrete, not continuous. This work also introduced the concept of "taxonomy". His theory of "Nature's war" - of plant species fighting each other for space and existence - influenced Charles Darwin and was one of the considerations that influenced Darwin's theory of natural selection.
The present work describes a number of rare plants of Geneva's famous botanical garden which was founded by Candolle himself in 1817. The remarkably fine stipple-engravings are all beautifully printed in colour and some are finished by hand.
Great Flower Books, p.53; Nissen BBI 327; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 1000.