Beschreibung:

AUDEBERT, Jean Baptiste (1759-1800) and Louis-Jean Pierre VIEILLOT (1748-1831). Oiseaux Dorés ou à reflets métalliques. I. Histoire naturelle et générale des Colibris, oiseaux-mouches, jacamars et promerops. II. Des grim[éraux et des oiseaux de paradis. Paris: Crapelet for Desray, [?1800-] 1802. 2 volumes, 4° (325 x 242mm). Titles of whole work, volume titles, publisher's foreword, list of subscribers, section-titles, 190 FINE ENGRAVED PLATES, PRINTED IN COLOURS, five double-page and one folding, after and by Audebert, printed by Langlois, (Final leaf of vol. I with central portion excised and laid down, folding plate (no. 14, vol. II) with short tears along fold, plate 15 of vol. II just trimmed at outer margin, slightly affecting image, a few plates strengthened at inner margins, some with very light spotting, text and plates for "Oiseaux de Paradis" bound at beginning, instead of end, of vol. II.) Contemporary figured half sheep over pink paper-covered boards, spine in six compartments with yellow and green morocco lettering-pieces in two (skilful restoration to head and foot of spines and parts of joints). Provenance : Bonjean, ("Botaniste à Chambéry", printed label on title of vol. I); J. C. Verney (inscriptions on titles); F. Rabut of Cambridge (bookplates on titles). First quarto edition of Audebert and Vielliot's ambitious work on iridescent birds. The quarto edition was published either contemporaneously with the folio, or at its conclusion, and some quarto copies are uncoloured. The present copy, however, has plates printed in colours in the same way as the folio version, using the process developed by Audebert. The text was mainly written by Vieillot, as Audebert died in 1800, just as the publication of the text began. It deals with "a heterogenous assortment of forms" (Mengel) including humming-birds, jacamars, birds of Paradise and iridescent birds from several other genera. Mengel 94; cf. Nissen IVB 47; Anker 14, Zimmer p. 17; Fine Birds Books p. 56. (2)