Seba, Albertus

First edition, Latin/French issue, 4 volumes, folio (515 x 340mm.), half-titles, main-titles printed in red and black with engraved vignette, engraved portrait of the author by Houbraken after Quinkhard, coloured by hand, engraved allegorical frontispiece “Industria” by Tanjé after Dubourg, coloured by hand (repeated in volume 2, uncoloured), 449 engraved plates, all coloured by hand (175 of the plates double-page), by Tanjé, van der Laan, de Bakker, van Buysen, de la Croix, Folkema, Jongman, Morellon, Putter, Punt, and van der Speyk, contemporary French green half morocco, spines lettered in gilt, [Anker 454; Fine Bird Books, p.106; Landwehr 179; Nissen BBI 1825; Nissen ZBI 3793], stab hole in gutter of a few leaves in vol.1, traces of old tissue guards adhering in folds of some double-page plates or with slight loss from their removal in a few cases (e.g. vol.1 plate 72, vol.3 plate 21), vol.1 plate 22 bound out of order, vol.1 plates 89 and 90 inverted, vol.2 with slight worming in gutter at end and in fold of plate 114, vol.3 plates 6 and 67 lightly printed with plate number gone over in MS, some wear to head- and tailbands and extremities of spines

Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven, bookplate; thence by family descent

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A fine example of the most sumptuous and complete record of any of the eighteenth-century cabinets of natural history.

Albertus Seba was an apothecary in Amsterdam who became rich in the service of the Dutch East India Company. During this time the Dutch, through the Company, commanded the most extensive network of trade and colonies in the world, and it was by exploiting this that Seba managed to acquire his collection. Accordingly, Seba gathered a vast array of specimens from Sri Lanka, Greenland, Indonesia and other far-flung places. Many specimens were South American, particularly Brazilian; these came to him via the Dutch colony in Surinam. The present work is a catalogue of his second and grandest cabinet of natural rarities, including mammals, birds, plants, insects, butterflies, reptiles, amphibians, fish, crustaceans, shells, minerals and fossils. His first collection had been sold in 1717 to Peter the Great of Russia for the then huge sum of 15,000 guilders. However, his new collection soon surpassed the earlier one, and was much admired by Linnaeus, although the latter denounced the seven-headed hydra as a fake. This notwithstanding, Seba's cabinet played an important part in Linnaeus's classification of the natural world.

Such was the magnitude of Seba's collection that his private museum became something of a tourist attraction, visited both by passing dignitaries and naturalists. One of the latter was Maria Sybilla Merian, who made use of the cabinet in her great work on Surinamese insects. Seba died in 1736 with the last two volumes of the catalogue still awaiting publication. The collection itself was auctioned in 1752, in order to finance the completion of the catalogue. Many of Seba's specimens still survive in European museums.