Beschreibung:

LODDIGES, Conrad (1738-1826) and sons. The Botanical Cabinet, consisting of coloured delineations of plants from all countries. London: W. Wilson for John and Arthur Arch, C. Loddiges and Sons and others, [1817]-1818-1833. 20 volumes, 4° (210 x 158mm). Engraved titles, approximately 2,000 hand-coloured engraved plates and 1 uncoloured plate (no. 684*) by George Cooke after G. and W. Loddiges. Miss J. Loddiges, G., W.I. and E.W. Cooke and others. (A few plates shaved at outer margin, not affecting image, occasional offsetting onto text and light spotting.) Contemporary green half morocco gilt, red lettering-pieces on spines (extremities and joints of vol. XX rubbed, spines darkened to brown). Provenance : Bernard Brocas Beaurepaire (armorial bookplates and signatures); Frederick DuCane Godman (armorial bookplate). Sold as a periodical, not subject to return. FIRST EDITION of a complete set of a work intended as a celebration of divine creation, as much as a botanical study. The text was written by Conrad Loddiges's son, George (1784-1846), who also contributed some of the drawings, and the work was published in monthly fascicles of ten plates each. Conrad Loddiges was a Dutch-born British horticulturalist who settled in England about 1761 as a nurseryman at Hackney, and introduced many new plants into the British isles, especially from the United States. By 1879, one of the illustrators, E. W. Cooke, wrote that "the whole of the 2000 copper plates were stolen by one of Loddiges' men from his library in the Garden". Stafleu TL2 4914; Nissen BBI 2228; Great Flower Books p. 85; Dunthorne 187. (20)