Lot 10: CURTIS, Samuel (1779-1860). Monograph on the Genus Camellia ... the whole from original drawings by Clara Maria Pope . London: J[ohn]. and A[rthur]. Arch, '1819' [watermarks 1818-1820].

CURTIS, Samuel (1779-1860). Monograph on the Genus Camellia ... the whole from original drawings by Clara Maria Pope . London: J[ohn]. and A[rthur]. Arch, '1819' [watermarks 1818-1820]. Broadsheets (702 x 580mm). Mounted on cloth guards throughout. Engraved title and engraved dedication to Georgiana, Duchess of Newcastle, by J. Girtin. 4 letterpress text leaves on the Camellia Japonica printed in double columns. 5 very finely grained hand-coloured aquatint plates by Weddell after Clara Maria Pope, finished with gum arabic. (Expert restoration to margins of each leaf, old dampstaining to upper outer corner of final plate, just affecting image area.) 20th-century green morocco, spine in six compartments with raised bands, lettered in gilt along the length of the spine in the second to fourth compartments (light soiling and discolouration to spine). Provenance : Quentin Keynes (1921-2003). EXCEPTIONALLY RARE: 'ONE OF THE EARLIEST AND PROBABLY THE FINEST OF ALL THE GREAT CAMELLIA BOOKS' ( Great Flower Books ). Clara Maria Pope (c.1767-1838) -- one of the greatest botanical artists of her day -- came from an artistic background; her father was the amateur artist Jared Leigh (1724-1769), her first husband the artist Francis Wheatley (1747-1801), and her second husband the Irish actor and artist Alexander Pope (1763-1835). When her first husband's health began to fail, Clara supported her family by becoming a drawing teacher -- counting amongst her pupils Princess Sophia of Gloucester -- and working as an artist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1796. Her early works were miniatures and rustic scenes, but her real reputation rests on her flower painting and botanical studies, work with which she almost solely occupied herself from 1816 until her death on Christmas Eve 1838. The author, Samuel Curtis, FLS, was a cousin of William Curtis (1746-1799), the celebrated English botanist and entomologist, and founder and editor of the Botanical Magazine (see the following lot). Samuel married Sarah Caustin (1779-1827), the daughter of his cousin William, in October 1801, and became the proprietor of the Botanical Magazine as a result, although he did not gain full control of publication until 1827. Pope also colloborated with Curtis on his only other published work The Beauties of Flora (1806-1820). Together, Curtis and Pope produced a truly remarkable work, as celebrated for the beauty of its engraved plates as it is for its rarity. It was issued with uncoloured plates at £3. 3s and with coloured plates at £6. 16s. 6d., but publication appears to have ceased prematurely, possibly due to the expense incurred by Curtis. THE WORK IS RARE AT AUCTION: ABPC only records the Fattorini copy (lacking title and text, the plates mounted) and one other copy at auction since 1975. Equally, Dunthorne's statement of the Monograph and The Beauties of Flora that, 'both of these grand and important works ... are so rare that they are known only to a fortunate few' (p. 40) is confirmed by Great Flower Books : ' Monograph on the Genus Camellia [is ...] as beautiful and rare as its companion' (p. 43). All eleven leaves are on paper watermarked J. Whatman and dated 1818-1820. The text consists of notes on the class and order of the Japan Rose (p. 1), descriptions of the specimens illustrated (pp. 2-7), 'propagation and culture' (pp. 6-7), and a list of 'all Camellias at present known' (p. 8), and is enlivened with Curtis's colourful remarks on a species which interested him deeply: 'Just as the dawn is the harbinger of morning, and the sun does not at once reach his meridian glory, so the Camellias advance upon us by degrees in beauty' (p. 3). Eleven varieties of Camellia Japonica or Japan Rose are depicted on the unnumbered plates: [plate 1] Single White; Single Red Camellia; Sasanqua Camellia [plate 2] Double White Camellia; Double Striped Camellia [plate 3] Pompone or Kew Blush Camellia; Double Red Camellia [plate 4] Anemome flower'd or Waratah Camellia; Rose coloured or Middlemists Camellia [plate 5] Buff or Humes Blush Camellia; Myrtle leaved Camellia BM(NH) I, p.406; Dunthorne 85; Great Flower Books p.88; Lowndes p. 572; Nissen BBI 437; Stafleu and Cowan 1283; cf. Printmaking in the Service of Botany (Pittsburgh: 1986), 34 (plate 4 only).

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