Illustrations of the lotus of antiquity. By R. Duppa, LL. B.
THE PLESCH–de BELDER–GOLDEN COPY
London: T. Bensley (for the author?), 1813. First edition.
Pot folio (13 7/8” x 10 11/6”, 338mm x 271mm): B2 C-D2 χ-2χ2 [$1 signed]. 10 leaves, pp. 1-3 (title, blank, text) 4-12, [8] (8pp. text). With 5 engraved plates, of which 4 are hand-colored and one part-colored in outline.
Bound in contemporary half green morocco over pink paste-paper. Author and title along the spine gilt. Marbled end-papers.
The joints weak and starting at thead and tail, the spine sunned and brittle. Some rubbing and soiling to the boards, with wear at the extremities. The final plate (“Capsula of the Tamara with ripe seeds”) laid in loose. A very little foxing, largely avoiding the plates. Graphite notes to the bottom of the third and fourth plates. Gilt leather bookplate of Arpad Plesch to the front paste-down, with offsetting to the free end-paper.
Richard Duppa (1770–1831) matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford at the unusually late age of 37, and then a little more than 2 years later at the Middle Temple in London, before finally taking his Ll. B. (legum baccalaureus, undergraduate law degree) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1814 (around the age of 44). This uncommon path of learning suggests, perhaps, a broader range of interest than just in the law, as the present volume attests. Students of ancient Greek have long puzzled at the word λωτός (lôtos), which in Homer more commonly refers to the clover than to the lotus of lotus-eaters, which is to say the water-lily. Duppa produced the present brief work to square Linnaean nomenclature with the botany of Homer as well as Theophrastus, Pliny and most of all Dioscorides. This is a well-trodden path in the history of botany, one that has not yet reached a terminus.
The first edition of the work is not in Nissen, Great Flower Books or in BM(NH); but does appear in Pritzel. BM(NH) records that only 25 examples of the 1816 second edition were printed, and given the absence of the present work in three major botanical bibliographies, it stands to reason that fewer were printed of this first edition. OCLC records a dozen institutional examples[1] and Rare Book Hub records the book coming to auction just 5 times (the present example twice).
The graphite marginalia show a reader quite familiar with Greek, and given the presumably very small circulation of the work (and a nearly identical marginalium to the plate of the “Lotus major”), it may well be the hand of the author. The annotator to “Lotus major” quotes Dioscorides IV.111 (λωτος ημερος, τον δε τριφυλλον· φυεται εν παραδεισοις; domestic lotus, the one with three leaves; it grows in gardens) and reflects further: “This figure is to show the general character of the genus which is called Lotus by Dioscorides rather than to represent the particular plant which he has called Λωτὸς ἤμερος”). The same hand writes at the lower margin of “The appearance of the Tamara with its leaves when growing in the water” “see Strabo Lib.17.c.799,” probably corresponding to modern 17.3.11.
The first owner to leave a definitive mark on the book was Arpad Plesch (1889–1974). Not coincidentally, his Mille et un livres botaniques de la collection Arpad Plesch is the only major bibliography beside Pritzel to record the first edition. Plesch was among the greatest collectors of botanical books in history, and the catalog of 1,001 of his finest — like the Arabian Nights — is a constellation of the genre’s greatest prizes. The present item was lot 234 in his 1975 Sotheby’s London sale of his collection at the Stiftung für Botanik in Liechtenstein.
Perhaps the purchaser was Robert de Belder (1921–1995), at whose Sotheby’s London sale (“Magnificent Botanical Books,” 27 April 1987) the volume was lot 113. De Belder — his wife Jelena collected with him — was heir to a Belgian diamond company, and in 1952 acquired a 21-acre nursery at Kalmthout, where he cultivated a great many rare plants. Finally the book entered the collection of John Golden. Mr. Golden, long a client of Arader’s, has long worked in the field of printing. His collection, amassed over forty years, contains examples of finely printed works of natural history. The volume was purchased from the Sotheby’s New York sale of his library, 22 November 2022, lot 19.
Plesch (this example) p. 213; Pritzel 2542.
[1] Brooklyn Museum NC815 D92 #33; Harvard, Dumbarton Oaks RARE RBR B-1-2 DUP and Houghton GEN Bot 108.13*; National Agricultural Library 452.3 D922 (digitized); Dartmouth QK495.N97 D87 1813; Missouri Botanical Garden QK495.F88 D85 1813; Hunt Institute DQ2 D941I; University of Chicago (ex-Crerar?) f QK495.N97D87 1813; University of Glasgow Sp Coll f447; Cambridge, UL MA.38.145; London, Natural History Museum (2 copies, the second without plates) 398 DUP F; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 4"@Lw 5128.
Item #JLR0663
Price: $12,500