Jacquin, Nikolaus Joseph von

Half-title, engraved vignette of two ships approaching a New World island on title-page, 2 engraved scenic headpieces, numerous woodcut tailpieces, engraved emblematic frontispiece to plate-section depicting Native Americans holding up a banner-map of the West Indies surrounded by Caribbean flora and fauna. Illustration: 184 engraved plates (numbered I–XXXVII, XXXVII*, XXXVIII–CLXXXIII [also numbered lower right 1–37, 37*, 38–183]; 6 folding) after Jacquin by Jacob Wangner.

Folio (14 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.; 360 x 234 mm). Binding: Nineteenth-century marbled boards, rebacked and recornered to style with diced brown morocco, smooth spine gilt-ruled in six compartments, plain endpapers and edges.



Browning and spotting, frontispiece with early repaired tear, plate 78 shaved at fore-edge costing part of plate number but not image, plate 156 trimmed within plate-mark not touching any engraving, plate 130 with small internal hole not affecting image.

Blunt, pp. 171–172; Cleveland Collections 463; De Belder sale 172; Dunthorne 148; Hunt 579; Lank 32; Nissen 979; Plesch sale 386; Pritzel 4362; Sabin 35521; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 3243; Wellcome 3:340

Browning and spotting, frontispiece with early repaired tear, plate 78 shaved at fore-edge costing part of plate number but not image, plate 156 trimmed within plate mark not touching any engraving, plate 130 with small internal hole not affecting image.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

First edition of Jacquin's first major publication and his first illustrated work. Shortly after plans were initiated in 1753 to build a monumental garden and greenhouse at the Schönbrunn Palace, Jacquin was dispatched by Emperor Francis I Stephan to the Caribbean islands to collect plants, trees, seeds, and other natural history specimens for the royal collections. Jacquin spent four years exploring the West Indies and also made drawings and watercolors of the many new species he collected. These drawings proved vitally important when his herbarium specimens were largely destroyed by ants, termites, and mold. Jacquin's field drawings are the basis for the engraved plates in the present work.

Jacquin was the most important of the younger contemporaries of Linnaeus and the first writer in German to utilize Linnaeus's system of binary nomenclature to any significant degree. "Jacquin's Selectarum stirpium Americanarum historia remains a fundamental work on the Caribbean flora, and it was here that the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) received its scientific name, still valid today. This plant of worldwide economic importance, which is native to Africa, had been grown in the Caribbean for centuries" (Lank).