American Medical Botany, being a Collection of the Native Medicinal Plants of the United States containing their Botanical History and Chemical Analysis, and Properties and Uses in Medicines, Diet and the Arts, with Coloured Engravings
THE REESE SET
6 parts in 3 volumes. Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1817, 1818 and 1820.
Quarto. With 60 aquatint plates, mostly printed in color a la poupée. Bigelow had planned to use hand-colored copper plate engravings, which are used in the first half of the first volume, but he turned to this less expensive method for the rest.
Bound in contemporary calf (voll. 1 and 2; vol. 1 rebacked with original labels laid down; vol. 3 bound in modern calf to match). On the spine, author and title gilt to red morocco in the second panel and volume to medallion in the fourth.
Vol. 1: re-backed, wear to the extremities, losses to the front and back boards. Vol. 2: hinges and spine worn, with splits at the head and tail. Foxing and offsetting throughout. Bookplate of The University of Chicago Libraries to the front paste-down (deaccesioned 8/84) in voll. 1 and 2. In all volumes: the ink-stamp of T. A. Greene to the title-page, cancelled Chicago library ink-stamps to the versos of the title-pages (copyright) and mechanical number-stamp to the recto of the leaf following the title. Tape-binding of I.II perished.
Jacob Bigelow (1787-1879) was a physician, botanist and botanical illustrator. Born in Massachusetts, Bigelow had a flourishing 60 year career as a doctor in Boston. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard medical school, where he taught for forty years, 1815-1855. He wrote and edited American Medical Botany, creating the “first botanical book published in America” (Stamped with a National Character). The plates were inked with several colors applied with small cotton pads (shaped like a doll or poupée) for each impression. The process is intensively laborious and proved too expensive to continue for long into the XIXc.
From the collection of William S. Reese (1955-2018), who was one of the great Americana booksellers. His firm continues to trade in New Haven. After his death, Christie’s New York sold his private collection (24-25 May 2022; the present item was lot 93).
Nissen, BBI 164; Norman 234; Sabin 5294.
Item #AMB0085
Price: $12,000