Peter Simon Pallas | Flora Rossica, 1784-1788, 2 volumes, original marbled boards, uncut, Jussieu copy

Peter Simon Pallas

Flora Rossica seu stirpium Imperii Rossici per Europam et Asiam indigenarum descriptiones et icones... Tomi I pars I (-pars II). St Petersburg: J.J. Weitbrecht, 1784-1788

2 volumes, folio (498 x 305mm.), additional hand-coloured lithographed title-page between text and plates in part 1, 101 hand-coloured engraved plates (numbered I-C with additional plate VIIIB), some printed correction slips to page numbers pasted in part 2, original blue patterned paper boards, red morocco lettering-pieces, UNCUT, joints and spines somewhat worn

A LARGE UNSOPHISTICATED COPY of Pallas's description of native Russia flora, from the library of the Jussieu family of naturalists. The plates are by Karl Friedrich Knappe, a German artist to the Russian court, whose original drawings survive in the New York Public Library. This is just the first volume, containing plants from western Siberia where Pallas had travelled in the 1770s, and the project remained unfinished.

The final plate interestingly shows cross-sections of wood from the different trees mentioned in the work. Pallas also made sure to include the name of each plant in Russian and any local variant.

LITERATURE:

Dunthorne 221; Great Flower Books, p. 70; Hunt 672; Nissen BBI 1482

PROVENANCE:

"From the de Jussieu sale", manuscript note, i.e. Antoine Laurent, Adrien and Bernard de Jussieu, sale, Paris, 11 January 1858, lot 1815, and ink note at end "N. 1815 = 45"; "Paris, 10 February 1936", manuscript note on inside front cover, i.e. Giard and Andrieux's sale of Jussieu books, held in Paris on that date