Weinmann | Phyzantoza Iconographia, Regensburg, 1737-45, 4 volumes plus index volume, contemporary calf gilt

Johann Wilhelm Weinmann

Phytanthoza Iconographia, sive conspectus aliquot millium, tam indigenarum quam exoticarum, ex quatuor mundi partibus.... Regensburg, H. Lentzen [vol.4: H.G. Neubauer], 1737-1745

FIRST EDITION, 4 volumes plus index volume, folio (382 x 250mm.), 4 engraved titles, mezzotint frontispiece and 2 mezzotint portraits, 1025 plates, some double-page, mostly engraved, some in mezzotint (the engraved plates hand-coloured, the mezzotints printed in colours and hand-finished), contemporary mottled calf, richly gilt, spines with raised bands in seven gilt compartments with red morocco label, covers with gilt-tooled borders, index bound in speckled calf, marbled endpapers, edges decorated, some light offsetting, hinge of volume 1 detaching, very slightly rubbed

A FINE COPY in an attractive contemporary German binding of this extremely valuable record of the plant kingdom as it was understood in the mid eighteenth-century. The plants are ordered alphabetically, as was done preceding the introduction of Linnaeus' revolutionary system of classification. The work is also valued for the high artistic standard of its plates, showing algae, bulbs, flowering plants, vegetables, fruits, shrubs, and trees. Weinmann's masterpiece was "the first botanical book to use colour-printed mezzotint successfully" (Hunt).

LITERATURE:

A Cleveland Herbal, 388; Dunthorne, 327; Nissen, BBI, 2126; Pritzel, 10140; Stafleu, TL2, 17050