Paris, de l’Imprimerie de Crapelet, chez Deterville, 1803.
15 volumes 12mo [130 x 81 mm] of: I/ xvi prelim. pp., 324 pp.; II/ (4) pp., 335 pp., 1 unf. pl. out of text in colour; III/ (4) pp., 588 pp., 1 unf. pl. out of text in colour; IV / (4) pp., 317 pp., 13 pl. out of text in colour and 1 pl. out of text in black and white; V/ (4) pp., 332 pp., 2 pl. out of text in black, 8 pl. out of text in colour; VI/ (4) pp., 317 pp., 13 pl. out of text in colour; VII/ (4) pp., 328 pp., 10 pl. out of text in colour; VIII/ (4) pp., 328 pp., 10 pl. out of text in colour; IX/ (4) pp., 338 pp., 7 pl. out of text in colour X/ (4) pp., 340 pp., 6 pl. out of text in colour; XI/ (4) pp., 326 pp., 6 pl. out of text in colour; XII/ (4) pp., 326 pp., 21 pl. out of text in colour; XIII/ (4) pp., 323 pp., 14 pl. out of text in colour; XIV/ (4) pp., 285 pp., 7 pl. out of text in colour, pp. 193 à 204 bound after p. 216; XV/ (4) pp., 325 pp., 2 pl. out of text in colour. A total of 121 plates including 118 in colour.
Full green vellum skin, flat spines decorated with gilt fillets, reddish lettering pieces, yellow speckled edges. Contemporary binding.
Complete first edition of Lamarck’s Histoire naturelle des végétaux, bearing the dates of 1802 or 1803, rich of 121 plates including here 118 that have been delicately watercoloured at the time.
Pritzel, 5006 (mentions editions in 1802 and 1830).
This edition is considered as the suite of Buffon’s Works and is indistinctly complete as here bound in 15 volumes numbered 1 to 15, or bound at the end of the edition of Buffon’s Histoire naturelle printed between 1794 and 1803, forming a total of 80 volumes and in which the last 15 volumes contain Lamarck’s Histoire naturelle des végétaux.
« Lamarck was the author of vols. 1 and 2, vols. 3-15 were written by Brisseau-Mirbel”. (Jackson, Guide to the Literature of Botany, p. 115).
This edition is abundantly illustrated with 121 plates out of text of plants engraved on metal.
Our copy belongs to the deluxe printing of which 118 plates have been watercoloured with stencil at the time.
Very beautiful copy complete with the totality of the engravings, of a perfect freshness, preserved in its contemporary uniform bindings in green vellum skin, rare condition for this type of natural history works that have often been very manipulated.
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