Beschreibung:

HOOLA VAN NOOTEN, Berthe (fl. 1863-1885). Fleurs, Fruits et Feuillages choisis de l' Ile de Java ... Troisiéme Edition. Brussels: Librairie Europene C. Muquardt, [1885]. 2 o (556 x 396 mm). Text in French and English. 40 chromolithographed plates by P. Depannemaeker after Berthe Hoola van Nooten. Publisher's red half cloth, with printed title on upper cover (hinges cracked, worn, spine mostly perished). Provenance : Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Stickney Fund (bookplate dated 1881; stamps). Third edition of this spectacular selection of plates by Berthe Van Nooten, a latter-day Maria Sibylla Merian They depict a mixture of indigenous, naturalised and introduced plants and include shrubs, flowering trees and, perhaps the most striking of all, 16 portraits of plants with edible fruits: Pomelo, Rambutan, Mangosteen, Custard-apple, Bread-fruit, Mango, Bananas, Star-fruit, Papaya amongst others. Van Nooten had accompanied her husband to Jakarta on Java, where he died. The present edition is one of the editions published in the 1880s. The issue of the third edition described in An Oak Spring Flora (p.330) does not have the English text. "Van Nooten was clearly more than competent, for the splendid tropical plants...have been depicted with great skill. She managed to accentuate the splendour of each species by adopting a style that combined great precision and clarity with a touch of neo-Baroque exuberance, revelling in the rich forms and colours of the tropics." Nissen BBI 931; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 3025; An Oak Spring Flora 87.