234 superb flower plates, finely watercolored at the time.
Paris, 1785-1794.
Buchoz, Pierre-Joseph. The Great Garden of the Universe, where the most Beautiful, the most curious and the rarest Plants from the four parts of the Earth are colored, forming the continuation of the Herbarium of China, the Collection of Flowers of China and Europe, marvelous gifts in the plant kingdom and the garden of Eden.
Paris, chez l’auteur, 1785.
2 parts in one folio volume.
– [Followed by]: New Physical and Economic Treatise, in the form of dissertations, of all the plants that grow on the surface of the globe…
A Paris, chez l’Auteur, 1789-1794.
2 works in 2 large folio volumes of: I/ (1) title, 100 full-page out-of-text plates, (1) table leaf, (1) title, plates 101 to 200, (1) table leaf; II/ (2) leaves, 25 plates accompanied by their explanatory text, (2) leaves, 9 plates.
First volume in red half-morocco with frame, spine with bands adorned with mosaic compartments in green morocco, title and volume labels in green morocco, frame of golden bands and edges on the morocco bands bordering the covers, decorated cuts, golden garland on the edges; second volume in a homogeneous binding, half-morocco with corners, spine with bands adorned with compartments in green morocco, title and volume piece in green morocco. Homogeneous bindings of the time.
425 x 273 mm.
I – Extremely rare original edition of this work, complete with two parts and 200 beautiful finely heightened engraved plates.
Dunthorne 67; Great Flower Books p. 81; Nissen BBI 289; Pritzel 1331; Stafleu 891.
Extremely rare work. Stafleu mentions only two copies in institutions: the Natural History Museum of London, with a complete copy, and the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden, with a copy of the first volume only.
“This work by Mr. Buchoz is not often found for sale“. (Bibliographic, historical, and critical dictionary of rare books…, p. 70)
Pierre Joseph Buchoz (1731-1807), doctor admitted to the Faculty and the Royal College of Medicine in Nancy, botanist physician of Monsieur, former physician of Her Majesty the King of Poland and of Monseigneur the Count of Artois… published no less than 500 works, which have become very rare, including his famous Garden of Eden describing the acclimatized and cultivated plants in the Queen’s gardens at Trianon. From the Cape of Good Hope to Guyana, from China to Canada and from Africa to Siberia, travelers bring back seeds and plants that the gardeners of Richard, father and son, acclimate in the greenhouses of Trianon, located at the site of the current English garden of Versailles. Very close to the court, Buchoz reports on the scientific and botanical experiments of the princes he has the privilege of frequenting.
Pierre-Joseph Buchoz, originally from Metz, is a lawyer, then a doctor and demonstrator at the Royal College of Physicians in Nancy. He publishes natural history works in the encyclopedic spirit of the time.
Today, his books are highly sought after for the beauty of the illuminated prints that accompany them.
Full-page engravings, in superb color of the period. The 200 plates constituting this herbarium represent the most beautiful flowers, the most curious and the rarest of the four parts of the world.
II- Precious collection of 44 illustrated essays with 34 engraved and watercolored botanical plates.
Buchoz designed his work as “the fourth part of the general and economic history of the three kingdoms of nature“, but at the same time sold his essays individually. Anyone could compose a copy at will, so no two are identical. Dissertations can be devoted to a particular plant or medical subjects, the last 5 in Latin.
This copy contains dissertations on Hottentots’ Bread, Bittersweet, Vine, Wine, Hellebore, Tourrette, Siberian Flax, Calonne, Aristoloche, Breteuil, Besenval, Acacia of Constantinople, the supplement to the coffee dissertation, Arum or Calf’s Foot, Quinine, Albon, Trochereau, Lathrea, Willemetia, Purple Foxglove, Helianthus, Toxicodendron, Boxwood, Ornithogalum, Daffodils, Dalechamp, Hyacinths, water-nut, water chestnut, water clover, etc.
Superb copy of this precious herbarium, preserved in its uniformly decorated red half-morocco bindings of the period.
No complete copy of The Great Garden of the Universe has been reported on the market since the early 1950s.
