Lot 30: MILLER, JOHN FREDERICK

Cimelia Physica: Figures of rare and curious quadrupeds, birds, &c. Together with several of the most elegant plants, engraved and coloured from the subjects themselves by John Frederick Miller, with descriptions by George Shaw. London: by T. Bensley for Benjamin and John White and John Sewell, 1796

Folio (20 3/8 x 13 3/4 in.; 518 x 350 mm). 60 handcolored engraved plates by and after Miller; without plate list and table of Linnaean classifications found in some copies, some soiling on the title and light offsetting from plates, scattered spotting only entering platemark on plate 40. Early 19th-century green straight-grain morocco, gilt roll-tooled frame within a blind-tooled frame, spine gilt in compartments, edges gilt; scuffed, joints and edges rubbed.

PROVENANCE

Henry George Charles, Viscount Lascelles (bookplate)
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Ayer/Zimmer 585; McGill/Wod 465; Nissen, IVB 638
CATALOGUE NOTE

A handsome copy of the second edition. This series of plates by John Frederick Miller, employed by Sir Joseph Banks and thus having access to the numerous zoological specimens Banks constantly received, first appeared between 1776 and 1792 under the title Various Subjects of Natural History. The descriptions by George Shaw have been newly added to the second edition.

Miller painted and etched these subjects and probably colored the plates himself. Though primarily known as an ornithological work, the Cimelia also contains a number of important plant portraits, most of which are the first illustrations of the species depicted.