Author: L'HERITIER DE BRUTELLE, C.L
Title: Cornus. Specimen Botanicum sistens
Date: 1788
Price: GBP £ 3,000
Book Code: 220

Cornus. Specimen Botanicum sistens Descriptiones et Icones specierum Corni minus cognitarum. Paris, P.F. Didot, 1788. Folio (530 x 355mm). pp. (2), 15, (1, blank), with 6 fine engraved plates, 3 are of drawings by Pierre Joseph Redouté, 3 by Freret, engraved by Devisse, Juillet, Maleuvre, and Hubert. Later green half calf, gilt lettered label on frontcover.

A fine copy of one of the very rare works illustrated by Redouté.

L'Heritier and Redouté worked together in London and later in Paris and as a result some of the finest French illustrated botanical works such as the 'Stirpes novae' ; 'Sertum Anglicum' and the 'Cornus' appeared.

"This is a magnificent eighteenth-century monograph on the Dogwoods, with three fine plates by Redouté and three good ones by Freret. Unfortunately for his place in taxonomic history, several of L'Heritier's species had already been named by Miller... and ... by Lamarck. In any case, the present book stands first in iconographic history: five of the six plates head the list in Stapf's 'Index Londinensis' (Hunt 698).

A catalogue of Redoutéana 2; Hunt 698.