Elephantographia curiosa, seu elephanti descriptio, juxta methodum et leges Imperialis Academiæ Leopoldino-Carolinæ naturæ curiosorum adornata, multisqve selectis observationibus physicis, medicis et jucundis historiis referta, cum figuris æneis
THE STOLBERG-WERNIGERODE–BRADLEY MARTIN COPY of
THE FIRST BOOK DEVOTED TO ELEPHANTS
Erfurt: Johann Heinrich Grosch for the author, 1715. First edition.
Pot quarto (8 1/8” x 6 7/16”, 208mm x 164mm): )(4 )()(4 a-b4 A-Nn4 [$3 signed]. 160 leaves, pp. [32] (blank, engraved frontispiece, title, blank, dedication, blank, 8pp. dedication, 2pp. verses, 4pp. to the reader, 4pp. contents, 8pp. preface (prooemium)), 1-96 295-96 97-284, [2] (verse with engraved tail-piece, blank). [=xxxii, 287, blank] With 28 plates: an engraved frontispiece (integral with the text) and 27 plates, of which 1 is folding.
Bound in contemporary (?) stabbed and laced vellum. Author and title gilt to the spine. All edges of the text-block sprinkled red.
A very little soiling to the vellum, but altogether near fine. Mild even tanning throughout, with the odd spot of foxing. Large margins, with over 25mm at the fore. Ink-stamp of the Fürstlich Stolberg Bibliothek Wernigerode to the title-page.
Georg Christoph Petri von Hartenfels (1633–1718) trained as a medical doctor, eventually becoming a garrison physician in Erfurt. He was professor of medicine there and eventually became rector of the University of Erfurt in 1689, whereupon he was ennobled as a Count Palatine and added “von Hartenfels” to his name From 1662 he was a member of the Akademie der Naturforscher, known as the Leopoldina; members upon entry were given a cognomen (a nickname of sorts); his was Achilles I. The Leopoldina, today the German National Academy of Sciences, was the German answer to the Accademia dei Lincei in Italy, and its members were the foremost scientists.
Armed with the library of the Leopoldina, Petri published the first work on elephants, which had nevertheless been known to Europeans since the Classical period — perhaps most famously Hannibal’s fighting elephant (which was Asian rather than African as is usually assumed). Aristotle considered them the gentlest of animals, and highly susceptible to training (such as being taught to bow to kings; Historia Animalium IX.46.1). Scholarly analysis of their behavior came from exploration in India and in Africa, and Petri cites and depicts skeletons and fossils. The natural fascination with the animal, long fed on myth and legend, could at last be expanded with rigor.
The volume was likely acquired by Christian-Ernest, Count of Stolberg-Wernigerode (1691–1771). He inherited some 10,000 volumes in his family library but trebled the holdings over the course of his lifetime, and made the collection accessible to the public twice a week. By 1897 there were in excess of 100,000 volumes, but more than 31,000 were sold off by Martin Breslauer in the early 1930’s. The remaining volumes were expropriated after the war, with many now in institutional collections, although the present Prince (Philipp Constantin, b. 1967) has continued his ancestors’ work of reassembling the library.
It is unclear when it joined the collection of Esmond Bradley Martin (1941–2018; his sale, Doyle 7 November 2023, lot 194). Martin was one of the great conservationists, focusing specifically on the elephant and rhinoceros. Born to a patrician family in New York, he settled in Nairobi and became the leading activist in the fight against poaching and the trade in ivory and rhinoceros horn. Like his brother Henry Bradley Martin, Esmond was a major book-collector, albeit with a focus on Africa. The present item is therefore of great significance in the global effort to protect pachyderms.
K10plusPPN 151657009; Nissen, ZBI 3149; Wood p. 518.
Item #JLR0550
Price: $17,500