Bigelow, Jacob | The first American book with color printing

Bigelow, Jacob

American Medical Botany, being a Collection of the Native Medicinal Plants of the United States. Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1817‒1821

6 parts in 3 volumes, 4to (246 x 168mm). Six section titles, three volume titles, 60 colored plates comprising 10 handcolored copper engravings and 50 plates printed in colors, probably from an etched stone, some finished by hand; instances of light offsetting of text onto plates, occasional and slight slight smudging, minor dampstaining to preliminary leaves of Vol. III. Later nineteenth-century black half morocco and marbled paper-covered boards, spines with raised bands in six compartments, second and fourth gilt-lettered, edges speckled red; minor rubbing to extremities. 

First edition, first state, of Bigelow's materia medica — the first American book with color printing.

Jacob Bigelow's early interests included botany. He lectured at Harvard and was appointed professor of materia medica at the Harvard Medical School, a post he retained until 1855. His American Medical Botany along with Barton's Vegetable materia medica (1817) are the first American botanical books with colored illustrations. Bigelow's achievements are noteworthy—he drew many of the plates and devised the means of reproducing them through a color process. Richard Wolfe has suggested that the plates (excluding those completed for Volume I, Part 1) are color-printed with some sort of etched stone technique. Wolfe also argues that there are different states of the first 10 plates: the first having only hand-colored plates and the second having color-printed plates. 

Dr. Bigelow's influence was not only felt in the natural sciences, he was also interested in mechanics. This led to his appointment as Rumford professor of the application of science to useful arts at Harvard from 1816-1827 and to the publication of his Elements of Technology in 1829.

REFERENCE:

Austin 205; Bennett 11; Cushing B384; Garrison/Morton 1842; Nissen BBI 164; Norman 234; Pritzel 733; Reese, American Color Plate Books 9; Sabin 5294

PROVENANCE:

Francis Brooks (armorial bookplates to front pastedowns) — Christie’s London, 17 March 1999, lot 6 (undesignated consignor)