Lot 19: Knip, Antoinette Paulette Jacqueline (née Courcelles) and Coenraad Jacob Temminck

Les Pigeons. Paris: Mame for Mme Knip and Garneray, [1808-] 1811 Folio ( 21 1/2 x 14 in.; 546 x 356 mm). Half-title; 2 short tears along gutter of half-title, occasional scattered foxing. 87 plates by César Macet after Madame Knip, printed in colors by Millevoy and finished by hand; light scattered or marginal foxing to most plates, withal a bright fresh copy with vivid coloring , one plate ( Colombe blanche ) creased with slight tear at the platemark. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine lettered gilt, plain endpapers and edges; board edges knocked with minor losses.

Ayer/Zimmer 356; Copenhagen/Anker 261; Fine Bird Books 86; Nissen, IVB 511; Ronsil 2890. For controversy see E. Coues in Bull. U. S. Geol. Geogr. Survey Territories, 5 (1878), pp. 794-796

First edition of this famous and superbly executed work on pigeons. Madame Knip had studied painting under Jacques Barrraband, one of the chief artists for Levaillant (see lot 21). The work was also a source of heated controversy between Madame Knip and Temminck. Fifteen livraisons had been planned with text by Temminck under the title Histoire naturelle générale des pigeons. However, Madame Knip baldly appropriated the publication from Temminck at the ninth livraison, altering the title and crediting herself as the sole author. The end result was a textual lacuna between p. 15 of the "Discours" and p. 23 of the general text, which Madame Knip dismissed as a "faute d'impression," and numerous aberrations in the numbering of the plates. Temminck had no recourse but to republish the text in three volumes in 1813-1815. A second volume was published with text by Florent Prévost between 1838-1843, at which time the first volume was reissued.