Beschreibung:

BATEMAN, JAMES. The Orchidaceae of Mexico & Guatemala, London: For the Author, James Ridgway & Sons [1837-43]. Atlas folio, 723 x 536 mm. (28 7/8 x 21 in.), contemporary half black morocco and green cloth, gilt morocco title label on upper cover, spine gilt, g.e., rubbed, chipping to head and tail of spine, lacking lithographed title, supplied in facsimile (a title-leaf from another copy [from an earlier state?, without the imprint] loosely inserted), also without the "Addenda et Corrigenda" and "Directions to the Binder" slips, dedication leaf linen-backed and with old marginal repairs, two small marginal repairs to subscribers list, slight creasing to preliminary text leaves, plate 40 with gutter renewed and traces of old tape at inner margin, extremely faint spotting or foxing to 21 plates, plate 40 and a few text leaves more markedly foxed, edges a bit browned . ONE OF 125 COPIES, 40 hand-colored lithographed plates by M. Gauci after Miss S. A. Drake, Miss Jane Edwards, Samuel Holden and Mrs. Augusta Withers, one uncolored plan of "epiphyte-houses" and 38 wood-engraved tail-piece vignettes, two by George Cruikshank Nissen BBI 89; Stafleu TL-2 342; Great Flower Books p. 48; Wilfred Blunt, The Art of Botanical Illustration , 1951, pp. 214-15: "...probably the finest, and certainly the largest, botanical book ever produced with lithographic plates... In size and in splendour, Bateman's giant folio eclipses the works of all who went before or came after him. Gauci...was a true master of the process: his tone ranges from the palest of silvery greys to the richest velvet black; his outline is never mechanical or obtrusive; and the hand-colouring--whoever may be responsible for it--is executed with consummate skill".