Lot 669: RENEAULME, Paul de (1560-1624) and Jacques-August de THOU (1553-1617). Specimen historiae plantarum. Paris: Hadrianus Beys, 1611.

RENEAULME, Paul de (1560-1624) and Jacques-August de THOU (1553-1617). Specimen historiae plantarum. Paris: Hadrianus Beys, 1611. 2 parts in one volume, 4o (228 x 169 mm). Printer's woodcut device on title, 25 engraved plates. (Small portion of blank margin of C1 torn away, minor marginal browining.) Contemporary English sprinkled calf, gilt spine (front joint split, spine rubbed). Provenance: R.E. Myddleton (bookplate); acquired from Marlborough Rare Books, 1969. FIRST EDITION of this important but neglected work. "Blunt speaks with understandable enthusiasm of the quality of the etchings" (Hunt). "Its etchings... are of the highest quality--exquisitely sensitive and extremely personal in treatment. They are assuredly the work, not only of a great lover of nature, but of a great master of the etcher's craft" (Blunt). Most references do not include the twenty-four leaves containing de Thou's five poems on flowers at the end. Blunt, The Art of Botanical Illustration p. 92; Hunt 192; Nissen BBI 1621; Pritzel 7542; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 9073.

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