Lot 23: LAWRANCE, MARY.

LAWRANCE, MARY. A COLLECTION OF ROSES FROM NATURE. LONDON : PUBLISHED BY MISS LAWRANCE, TEACHER OF BOTANICAL DRAWINGS, 1799 First edition , folio (390 x 300mm.), hand-coloured etched and stipple-engraved frontispiece, engraved title and dedication, 90 hand-coloured etched and stipple-engraved plates of roses, 4 partly or entirely captioned in the author's hand, 2 leaves of letterpress at end, burgundy morocco gilt by Zaehnsdorf, triple gilt fillet borders on covers, spine tooled gilt with rose motifs in 6 compartments, lettered in two, gilt edges

Dunthorne 176; Great Flower Books, p.64; Henrey 3:948; Nissen BBI 1151; An Oak Spring Flora 78; not in Hunt

Frederick, 2nd Lord Hesketh, bookplate

The first book devoted to roses. Lawrance (fl. 1794-1830), was a noted flower-painter and teacher of painting, who exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1795, and this work represents a breakthrough in the depiction of the rose in all its complexity, perfected in the following century by Redouté (see lots 51-89). The pioneering nature of the work means that there are inevitable infelicities in some of the plates, but as Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi notes "it cannot have been a simple task to present this flower for the first time in these ninety folio plates". She goes on to note that the frontispiece, a garland of roses, "can certainly be counted among the most charming in botanical illustration" (An Oak Spring Flora, p.300).

The work was published in thirty parts, beginning in 1796.