Beschreibung:

Botany - nature printing] - [ Nature printed ferns, leaves of trees and plants ] [= title on spine]. England, 19th c., large folio, c. 43 x 27,5 cm, 13 blank ff. + 189 nature prints on facing ff. (= both sides of lvs, only 1 side for the 1st print) + 15 blank ff. (occ. minor spotting), 19th-c. green half morocco by Townsend , gilt titled spine on 5 raised bands, a.e.g., marbl. endpapers. Nice copy.
Beautiful collection of very rare nature prints (ferns and leaves of trees and plants), printed in green, without identification or commentary. Nature printing is a printing process that uses plants (or other natural objects) to produce an image. The technique was i.a. developed by Alois Auer (1813-1869): the object is placed between a plate of steel and another of lead, both of which are smooth, and polished; they are then drawn through a pair of rollers under considerable pressure; when the plates are separated, it is found that a perfect impression of the object has been made in the leaden plate; this may be used directly as an engraved plate, but only if a very few impressions are wanted, for it is too soft to resist the action of printing presses for practical purposes. Armorial bookpl. Francis Patrick Smith . Ref. R. Cave, Impressions of nature (2010).