Beschreibung:

Pierre Joseph Buc’hoz
Herbier colorié de l’Amerique, representant les plantes les plus rares et les plus curieuses qui se trouvent dans cette nouvelle partie du monde. Paris: chez l’auteur, 1783
FIRST EDITION, 2 volumes, folio (462 x 280mm.), 3 engraved titles (at the beginning of each volume and before plates 201-206 in volume 2), list of plates 1-200, noting that the plates would “finish being engraved in 1786”, 206 HAND-COLOURED ENGRAVED PLATES (200 as called for and 6 additional plates) all captioned “Herbier de l’Amerique” and numbered in ink by a contemporary hand at the head of the platemark, contemporary red morocco gilt, spines gilt in compartments with floral and foliate motifs, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, plate 118 with faint brown stains affecting the background on either side of the main image, plates 157-159 with minor browning or foxing, other trivial imperfections, spine of volume 1 with short abrasion to head compartment, boards of volume 2 with a couple of minor scratches and a smattering of small dark spots
In handsome contemporary morocco, this copy of this rare, beautiful work of American botany contains more plates – 206 ‑ than any other example recorded in bibliographies, OCLC, or auction records. The largest number of plates among the ten copies in OCLC is 101 (and only the 1911 “Bradley Bibliography” compiled by Alfred Rehder of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard mentions the plate list that appears in the present volume). This list notes that the first 84 engravings were taken from another Buc’hoz work, “Les Dons Merveilleux dans le Règne Végétal” [1779-83], and plates 85-200 were drawn from his “Le Jardin d’Éden” (1783); these origins account for the roman numerals engraved on the plates, which do not match the numbers assigned in the plate list and handwritten on the plates. The fact that both of these source works had been completed by 1783 and the presence of a third title page in this volume suggest that Buc’hoz contemplated a third volume, and perhaps began gathering plates for it, represented here by the final six plates. These additions might suggest that this copy once belonged to a close associate of the author.
Born in Metz, Pierre Joseph Buc’hoz (1731‑1807) studied medicine at Nancy and served as physician in ordinary to Stanislaus, King of Poland, before leaving this post to pursue his passion for botany. He returned to royal service to identify and record the many new plants acquired for Louis XV’s Jardin du Trianon, then returned to Nancy to teach botany at the medical college. He compiled and published more than 300 volumes of botanical works, many of them illustrated, in his lifetime. The present book is one of the rarest: only one other copy has been traced at auction in the past half century: Christie’s, 2002, $19,120, containing just 100 plates.
REFERENCES: Dunthorne 68 (citing only the Massachusetts Horticultural Society copy, calling for 100 plates); Nissen BBI 285 (calling for 100 plates); Rehder, The Bradley Bibliography, 1:328 (calling for 200 plates); not in Cleveland, Hunt, or Sabin