Choix de coquillages et de crustacés peints d’après nature gravés en taille douce et illuminés de leurs vraïs couleurs par François Michel Regenfuss graveur du Roi. Publié par ordre du Roi / Auserlesne Schnecken, Muscheln und andre Schaalthiere auf allerhöchsten Befehl Seiner Königlichen Majestät nach den Originalen gemalt, in Kupfer gestochen, und mit natrlichen Farben erleuchtet
FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE OF THE LARGEST AND MOST SUMPTUOUS OF ALL CONCHOLOGICAL WORKS
Copenhagen: [Andreas Hartwig Godsiche], 1758. First edition, second issue.
Broadsheet folio (25 1/4" x 18 1/8", 642mm x 460 mm): 70 leaves, pp. [14] (half-title, instructions to the binder, French title, blank, German title, blank, German dedication to Frederick the Great, blank, 2pp. German dedication to the King, French dedication to Frederick, blank, 2pp. French dedication to the King) foll. † (2pp. advertisements) foll. A–G (I–XIV) foll. 2A–L (1 2–22) foll. a–xx (I–LXXXVII) [1] (Emendanda). With 12 hand colored copperplate engravings and 3 mezzotints printed in sanguine, 1 of which is a frontispiece and 2 of which are in-text.
Bound in half speckled calf over nonpareil marbled boards. On the spine, 7 raised bands. “REGENFUSS ON SHELLS” gilt to red morocco in the second panel. Presented in a beige cloth clamshell box.
Rebacked and re-cornered. Boards rubbed and worn at the extremities. Foxing to the front pastedown and oxidation to the fore-corners of the front and rear endpapers. Leaves mounted to stubs throughout. Peripheral tanning to the leaves and light offsetting to the plates and bookplate. Fore-edge of the frontispiece chipped and torn, not affecting the plate. Light cockling to the margins of the plates. Tape repairs to the bottom edge of Plate IV’s verso. Tear extending from the upper edge of Plate V, not affecting the plate. Bookplate of Tatton Park to the front pastedown.
Franz Michael Regenfuss (1713–1780) was born to a Nuremberg wig maker and his wife in the winter of 1713. Throughout his youth, Franz was enamored with exotic curiosities of natural history, and rather than joining the family business, Regenfuss the younger became a painter and engraver. Regenfuss was evidently inspired by Antoine Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville’s 1742 publication, Conchyliologie (a conventional but popular identification guide), as by 1745 he had plans for “the publication of [a] book which was to contain a scientific text on shells and crustaceans and numerous illustrations.” In 1748, he issued an advertisement in a small circular to attract shell collectors and dealers, fixing the price for a colored plate at 2 florins and an an uncolored plate at 1 florin (Jutting). Although a co-authorship had been advertised by Regenfuss later that same year, the original text — which had been supplied by Friedrich Christian Lesser, a German pastor and author of a semi-theological work on shells, Testaceo-Theologia — did not satisfy Regenfuss and he halted the work temporarily.
Through the mediation of Count Adam Gottlob von Moltke (an avid shell collector), the King of Denmark and Norway, and Frederic V, Regenfuss moved to Copenhagen where he was appointed engraver to the King and was able to continue working on his passion project whilst fulfilling his royal duties. It was common practice for intelligentzia to emigrate from Central Europe to Denmark in the XVIIIc, as the Seven Years’ War and the Austrian Succession had destabilized the region. There, Regenfuss finished production on twelve plates with 145 species, all of them (purportedly) drawn by himself and colored by his wife, Margaretha. The tome saw many iterations of text prior to its release; after nixing the musings of Pastor Lesser, Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein was brought on to the project for the first issue of the first edition. Kratzenstein’s accompaniment was much shorter and similarly lackluster. It was suppressed by King Frederick V, who advocated for a longer, collaborative text that was ultimately the brainchild of Lorenz Spengler, Johann Andreas Cramer, and Peter Ascanius, and Kratzenstein himself. In 1758, the second issue of the first edition was finally published and enjoyed immediate success. Regenfuss worked on twelve further watercolor illustrations for a planned second volume, and although a few sets of engravings were printed, an accompanying text was never completed and the work was not seen through the press.
Once settled in Copenhagen with his royal appointment, Regenfuss evidently went to some length to conceal the German origin of his illustrations, and most copies of Auserlesne Schnecken, Muscheln und andre Schaalthiere have evidence of plate imprints being effaced, although such evidence in the present example is indistinct. Of course, Regenfuss may have eliminated the imprints at the foot of the engravings in order to make the plates look as much like the original watercolors as possible, but it is likely that he wished to obscure the fact that they were printed in Germany (and perhaps, that they were after originals by another artist). Untouched examples feature plates with imprints that state the specimens were painted from life by Gab. Mller, engraved by Regenfuss, and published by him in Nuremberg with the permission of the Holy Roman Emperor. As Regenfuss began the project prior to his royal appointment, it can be expected that he brought the existing printing plates and his stock of impressions with him when he moved to Denmark. Of the frontispiece and head and tail engravings, a tantalizing cataloger’s note of both of the BM(NH) examples records that "the engravings in the text are printed in red (an indication that the copies were royal presentations), the impression in ordinary copies being in blue, whilst in the suppressed text they are illuminated.”
The present example was lot 43 in Sotheby’s 22 November 2022 sale of John Golden’s library. An executive of a family-owned packaging and printing company, John Golden began collecting through a fascination with the superlative papers and printing techniques of earlier centuries. Initially seeking inspiration for his work at Stephen Gould Corporation, an international leader in innovative and custom packaging and branding, Golden soon developed an appreciation for the primary publications of the age of enlightenment. Over the course of nearly four decades Golden meticulously collected a superb library, compact and cohesive, representing the very apex of printing and illustration in the golden age of scientific discovery.
Wilbraham Egerton (1781-1856) was a British landowner, member of parliament, and military man. He was the eldest surviving son of William Tatton (later Egerton) and succeeded his father in 1806, whence he inherited the large Tatton Hall estate in North Cheshire. Egerton was a Captain in the Royal Cheshire militia in 1803, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Macclesfield regiment in 1809 and Lieutenant-Colonel in the King's Cheshire yeomanry in 1831. He was appointed High Sheriff of Cheshire and was later elected MP for Cheshire in 1812, sitting until 1831. Tatton Hall and its meticulous gardens are currently maintained by the National Trust.
British Museum (NH) Volume IV, pp. 1665; Brunet IV.1180; Dance, A History of Shell Collecting pp. 38; Nissen ZBI 3338
Cataloged by G.R. Murdock
Item #GRM0071
Price: $75,000