Estate / Collection: Property from the Estate of Elaine and James D. Wolfensohn

BANKS, JOSEPH, Sir

Banks' Florilegium ... seven hundred and thirty-eight copperplate engravings of plants collected on Captain James Cook's first voyage round the world in H.M.S. Endeavour 1768-1771. London: Alecto Historical Editions and British Museum, 1980-1990. One of 110 sets, this set 44. Original cloth-backed portfolios in 34 original green cloth boxes with paper labels, these still largely in their original publisher's cardboard and paper wrappings. 29 x 22 1/2 inches (55 x 38 cm); 738 copper-engraved plates color printed a la poupée in up to 17 colors from the original plates by Daniel MacKenzie, G. Sibelius, Gabriel Smith et al. after Sydney Parkinson, Frederick Polydore Nodder, John Frederick Miller, James Miller, John Cleveley and Thomas Burgis, the plates housed in titled window mounts. Largely in fine condition. This set without the supplementary volume of five plates. Please note that, as the set is largely still in the original mailing boxes, we have only pictured the first volume in the images. Offered as is, not subject to return, must be picked up from our Bronx Warehouse.

This is the first complete edition of the engravings made after Sydney Parkinson's drawings, prepared by him before his death from dysentery on Batavia. These were drawn during Captain Cook's First Voyage, during which Joseph Banks collected over 800 specimens of hitherto unknown flora. 743 plates after the drawings by Parkinson and others were engraved under Banks' supervision by 18 engravers over a period of 13 years after the return to England, with manuscript descriptions of the specimens prepared by the great Swedish botanist Daniel Solander. Banks's intention to publish these plates and the accompanying research remained unrealized, and on Banks's death, the plates were bequeathed to the British Museum, where they remain. The complete set was never published in its intended form until the present Alecto Historical Editions publication (though a selection of fifty plates had appeared earlier under the aegis of another publisher).

The complete set is published in 35 parts with all plates and accompanying letterpress contained in 35 green cloth-covered Solander boxes with printed labels. The composition of the set is as follows:

Parts 1-15: Australia 337 plates
Part 16: Brazil 23 plates
Parts 17-18: Java 30 plates
Part 19: Madeira 11 plates
Parts 20-27: New Zealand 183 plates
Parts 28-31: The Society Islands 89 plates
Parts 32-34: Tierra del Fuego 65 plates
The supplement volume contains the final five plates.

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