DODART, Dionys (1634-1707). Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Plantes . Paris: by Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy at l'Imprimerie Royale, [colophon date: 1675]-1676.
DODART, Dionys (1634-1707). Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Plantes . Paris: by Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy at l'Imprimerie Royale, [colophon date: 1675]-1676. Broadsheet 2 o (548 x 406 mm). Letterpress title with engraved vignette. Engraved frontispiece of the Académie by and after Sebastien Le Clerc printed by Goyton, 39 engraved full-page illustrations, (28 by and after Nicolas Robert 11 by Abraham Bosse after Robert), engraved head-piece, tail-piece and initial. Accompanied by 5 additional engraved plates (see below). (Some occasional pale spotting, a few small stains.) Contemporary French gold-tooled red morocco, spine in eight compartments with seven raised bands, black morocco lettering-piece in one, repeated floral design in the remaining, edges gilt (some wear at ends of spine, a few repairs on sides). Provenance : Thomas Philip de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey (1781-1859), known as The Lord Grantham from 1786 to 1833, Tory statesman and politician and first President of the Institute of British Architects in London (Wrest Park bookplate); acquired from Lucien Goldschmidt, 1964. FIRST EDITION OF "ONE OF THE GREAT BOOKS IN THE HISTORY OF BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATION, where all the technical resources of engraving were utilized in presenting the plants as accurately as possible" (Hunt). The work was born out of the desire of the Académie Royale des Sciences to publish a natural history of plants, an idea first proposed by Claude Perrault in 1667, shortly after the Académie's foundation in 1666. Following Dodart's election to the Académie in 1673 (under Colbert's patronage), he was charged with the task, and prepared the Mémoires pour server à l'histoire des Plantes with other members. The first part ("Projet de l'histoire des Plantes", pp. [1]-52) establishes the need for the work and the form of the descriptions and illustrations of the plants, and the second part ("Descriptions de quelques Plantes nouvelles", pp. 53-131) comprises descriptions by N. Marchant and illustrations after Nicholas Robert of 39 species "dont la pluspart sont rares, & n'ont jamais esté ny décrites, ny figureés' (p. 53), in accordance with the structure proposed in the first part, describing the plants, their attributes, and the sources of the specimens. The remarkable full-page illustrations were engraved from drawings by Nicolas Robert (1614-1685) "made for the most part from life; in the case of several rare plants, he was obliged to adapt paintings which he had previously made on vellum at the Jardin du Roi. Robert in his Fiori Diversi and more particularly in another volume entitled Diverses Fleurs (ca 1660), had already shown his skill as an engraver. In this more exacting task he was now assisted, or perhaps directed, by the engraver Abraham Bosse" (Blunt, p. 122). The intention for the illustrations was that "wherever possible, the plants were to be portrayed life-size; if larger, but not more than twice the size of the page, they would be represented as cut in two; if still larger, but not more than twice the size of the page, they would be represented as cut in two; if still larger, some detail would be given full-scale, so that the true size of the plant could be better appreciated. Moreover, all the technical resources of engraving were to be fully utilized. The preface continues: "Since printing in colour is not employed yet, and since painters waste much time and are not always successful, we thought we could, in future, supply to some extent what was lacking in an engraving, by taking care to indicate, as far as is feasible, the depth of the colour. Thus a distinction would be made between brownish-green and pale green, between white and dark-coloured flowers..." These techniques led to images of such remarkable beauty and quality that "numerous authorities agree that Dodart's plates rank among the best botanical engravings ever produced" (Gavin D.R. Bridson and Donald E. Wendel, Printmaking in the Service of Botany ..., Pittsburgh: Hu
DODART, Dionys (1634-1707). Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Plantes . Paris: by Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy at l'Imprimerie Royale, [colophon date: 1675]-1676.
DODART, Dionys (1634-1707). Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Plantes . Paris: by Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy at l'Imprimerie Royale, [colophon date: 1675]-1676. Broadsheet 2 o (548 x 406 mm). Letterpress title with engraved vignette. Engraved frontispiece of the Académie by and after Sebastien Le Clerc printed by Goyton, 39 engraved full-page illustrations, (28 by and after Nicolas Robert 11 by Abraham Bosse after Robert), engraved head-piece, tail-piece and initial. Accompanied by 5 additional engraved plates (see below). (Some occasional pale spotting, a few small stains.) Contemporary French gold-tooled red morocco, spine in eight compartments with seven raised bands, black morocco lettering-piece in one, repeated floral design in the remaining, edges gilt (some wear at ends of spine, a few repairs on sides). Provenance : Thomas Philip de Grey, 2nd Earl de Grey (1781-1859), known as The Lord Grantham from 1786 to 1833, Tory statesman and politician and first President of the Institute of British Architects in London (Wrest Park bookplate); acquired from Lucien Goldschmidt, 1964. FIRST EDITION OF "ONE OF THE GREAT BOOKS IN THE HISTORY OF BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATION, where all the technical resources of engraving were utilized in presenting the plants as accurately as possible" (Hunt). The work was born out of the desire of the Académie Royale des Sciences to publish a natural history of plants, an idea first proposed by Claude Perrault in 1667, shortly after the Académie's foundation in 1666. Following Dodart's election to the Académie in 1673 (under Colbert's patronage), he was charged with the task, and prepared the Mémoires pour server à l'histoire des Plantes with other members. The first part ("Projet de l'histoire des Plantes", pp. [1]-52) establishes the need for the work and the form of the descriptions and illustrations of the plants, and the second part ("Descriptions de quelques Plantes nouvelles", pp. 53-131) comprises descriptions by N. Marchant and illustrations after Nicholas Robert of 39 species "dont la pluspart sont rares, & n'ont jamais esté ny décrites, ny figureés' (p. 53), in accordance with the structure proposed in the first part, describing the plants, their attributes, and the sources of the specimens. The remarkable full-page illustrations were engraved from drawings by Nicolas Robert (1614-1685) "made for the most part from life; in the case of several rare plants, he was obliged to adapt paintings which he had previously made on vellum at the Jardin du Roi. Robert in his Fiori Diversi and more particularly in another volume entitled Diverses Fleurs (ca 1660), had already shown his skill as an engraver. In this more exacting task he was now assisted, or perhaps directed, by the engraver Abraham Bosse" (Blunt, p. 122). The intention for the illustrations was that "wherever possible, the plants were to be portrayed life-size; if larger, but not more than twice the size of the page, they would be represented as cut in two; if still larger, but not more than twice the size of the page, they would be represented as cut in two; if still larger, some detail would be given full-scale, so that the true size of the plant could be better appreciated. Moreover, all the technical resources of engraving were to be fully utilized. The preface continues: "Since printing in colour is not employed yet, and since painters waste much time and are not always successful, we thought we could, in future, supply to some extent what was lacking in an engraving, by taking care to indicate, as far as is feasible, the depth of the colour. Thus a distinction would be made between brownish-green and pale green, between white and dark-coloured flowers..." These techniques led to images of such remarkable beauty and quality that "numerous authorities agree that Dodart's plates rank among the best botanical engravings ever produced" (Gavin D.R. Bridson and Donald E. Wendel, Printmaking in the Service of Botany ..., Pittsburgh: Hu
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