Beschreibung:

NATURE PRINTING -- Johann Hieronymous KNIPHOF (1704-1763). Botanica in originali seu herbarium vivum. Edited by Johann Gottfried Trampe. Halle and der Salle: J.G. Trampe, 1758-1763-1763-1758-1758-1759-1760-1758. Parts 1-8 only (of 12) bound in 2 volumes, 2° (330 x 200mm). 8 letterpress titles surrounded by hand-coloured and colour-printed nature-printed borders of flowers, leaves and butterflies, 4pp. dedication to Frederic V of Denmark in part I, a total of 20pp. of preliminary text in part I (4pp.), V (6pp.), VI (6pp.) and VII (4pp.), 6pp. index to parts I-VI in part VI, 2pp. index to individual parts in parts I-V and VII. 800 plates of nature-printed plants, colour-printed, most with added hand-colouring, each with letterpress caption (plates 534 and 537 with pasted on correction slips). (Some general spotting and light offsetting as usual, small wormhole to five plates in part VI.) Later half vellum. Provenance : most plates in parts I-IV with notes, including the common English names, added in manuscript by a single unidentified but early hand. MIXED ISSUE. A SIGNIFICANT SELECTION FROM ONE OF THE EARLIEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL BOTANICAL WORKS WITH NATURE-PRINTED ILLUSTRATIONS AND ONE OF THE FIRST BOTANICAL PLATE BOOKS TO USE LINNAEAN BINOMIALS. Kniphof was appointed professor of medicine at the University of Erfurt in 1737 and in 1745 professor of anatomy, surgery and botany. His innovation in the development of nature-printing, developed in conjunction with his first printer Johann Michael Funcke, was to use printer's ink instead of lampblack, and to use a flat printing press. He was also apparently the first to introduce 'a new feature... that of colouring the impressions by hand according to Nature' (Henry Bradbury 'On Nature Printing' [1855], p.3). In fact, however, most of the colouring of Kniphof's illustrations was produced by variously coloured printing inks, hand-colouring being usually reserved for the flowering portions of the plants. The present work was completed in 1764 with an overall total of 1200 plates. Cf. Dunthorne 170; cf. Ernst Fischer 'Zweihundert Jahre Naturselbstdruck', Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 1933 pp.186-213; cf. Nissen BBI 1076; cf. Stafleu & Cowan 3763. (2)