Plantae selectae qvarvm imagines ad exemplaria natvralia Londini in hortis cvriosorvm nvtrita manv artificiosa doctaque pinxit Geogivs Dionysivs Ehret Germanvs occasione havd vvlgari collegit nominibvs propriis notisqve svbinde illvstravit et pvblico vsvi dicavit D. Christophorvs Iacobvs Trevv medicvs Norimbergensis in aes incidit et vivis coloribvs repræsentavit Ioannes Iacobvs Haid pictor et chalcographvs avgvstanvs
THE PERTH COPY
[Nuremberg: 1750–1773]. 10 parts bound in 1. First edition.
Folio (20 2/3” x 13 15/16”, 525mm x 355mm): )(2 A–O2 +χ1 [$2 signed]. 31 leaves, pp. 1–56 [2] (monitum, index). With 10 engraved title-pages heightened in red and gold, three mezzotint portraits of Trew, Ehret, and Haid, and 100 hand-colored engraved plates after Ehret.
Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe of London in modern red morocco with a single gilt fillet to the boards. On the spine, 6 raised bands. Gilt to the first panel, an annulet with a raven or popinjay. Baron’s coronet issuing from the annulet. Title gilt to the second panel, contributors gilt to the third, date gilt to the heel. Triple gilt fillet to the dentelles. All edges of the text-block gilt.
Boards slightly sprung. Occasional ink transfer from the heightened title-pages to the verso of the previous leaf (plates and text not affected). Sporadic spotting to the margins throughout. Dampstain to the fore-margin of χ1, not affecting the text. Graphite and ink marginalia of Latin nomenclature in a later hand throughout. Binder’s embossing to the lower front dentelle. Written in graphite to the recto of the flyleaf, “Ex libris David, Lord Perth, d. 2003. Stobhall.”
Christoph Jakob Trew (1695–1769), a wealthy physician at Nuremberg and amateur botanist, admired the talent and skill of his younger countryman, Georg Ehret (1708-1770), a gardener by trade and a hobbyist painter. The pair had met while Ehret was at the service of a Regensburg banker named Leskenkohl. Trew was taken with Ehret, both as a patron and a partner. Plantae selectae was conceived as early as 1742 when Trew wrote to Christian Thran in Carlsruhe, saying, “Every year I receive some beautifully painted exotic plants [from Ehret] and have already more than one hundred of them, which with other pieces executed by local artists, should later on, Deo volante, constitute an appendicem to Weinmann’s publication but will, I hope, find a better reception than his.” In 1748, an agreement was reached that Johann Jakob Haid (or Elias Haid, as in Nissen 1704–1767) from Augsburg should provide the engravings, and the first installation of 10 engravings appeared in 1750.
Although Ehret had never traveled to the tropics, the specimina were selected based on botanical interest and exotic appeal. Influenced by his friendship with Linnaeus, Ehret was moved to analyze the structure of the plant prior to representing it. Of Ehret’s work, Linnaeus wrote to Trew that "the miracles of our century in the natural sciences are your work of Ehret's plants…nothing to equal them was seen in the past or will be in the future.” The two men were close collaborators and friends — Trew named the genus Ehretia (plate XXV) in Georg’s honor — until their deaths. Trew died in 1769 and Ehret passed the following year, leaving the last three parts unfinished. The work was seen through the press by Benedict Christian Vogel (1745–1825), a Professor of Botany at the University of Altdorf.
David Drummond, the 17th Earl of Perth, was born into the political milieu; his father was a career diplomat who had attended the Paris peace conference in 1919, was the first secretary general of the League of Nations, and in late life served as Ambassador to Rome. Drummond was educated at Downside and Trinity, Cambridge, and, looking to restore the family’s fortune, embarked on a banking career at J. Henry Schroder. Drummond succeeded in buying back his ancestral home (Stobhall Castle in Perthshire) from the Earl of Ancaster in 1954, and, with the help of his wife Nancy, set about the restoration of the building. In the final stages of the project, Lord Perth was able to indulge one of his life-long passions — book collecting. With an affinity for fine printed natural history, Plantae selectae is truly emblematic of his bibliophilic habits.
The collation of this work is variable, examples without portraits of Trew and Vogel have been recorded while others often lack section titles. The present example possesses both but is without the very rare supplement by Vogel, published later in two decuriae in 1790 and 1792.
Great Flower Books (1990) p.144); Nissen BBI 1997; Stafleu & Cowan 15.131.
Cataloged by G.R. Murdock
Item #GRM0064
Price: $85,000