‎Anonymous [Christie’s],‎
‎Natural history.‎

‎Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, avec la description du Cabinet du Roy (15 vols.) (+) Supplément à l'Histoire naturelle (6 vols) (+) Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux (9 vols) (+) Quadrupedes Ovipares et des Serpens (2 vols). 32 vols. - [FIRST ""COMPLETE SURVEY OF NATURAL HISTORY IN POPULAR FORM"" - PMM 198]‎

‎Paris, l' Imprimerie Royale, Plassan, 1749 - 1789. 4to (262 x 205 mm). Uniformly bound in 32 contemporary full sprinkled calf bindings with five raised bands and richly gilt spines. Leather tome- and title-labels to all volumes. Edges of boards gilt. Light wear to extremities primarily affecting head and foot of spines, corners bumped. Internally with light occassional, marginal brownspotting, but generally fine. With ""J. Collin"" (Danish zoologist Jonas Collin) to top margin of most front free end-papers. An overall nice set comprising the following:Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière (15 vols) - 578 plates and 2 maps.Supplément à l'Histoire naturelle (6 vols) - 141 plates and 2 maps.Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux (9 vols) - 257 plates.Quadrupedes Ovipares et des Serpens (2 vols) - 66 plates. A total of 1042 plates and 4 maps. Wanting the portrait. The complex collation of this work has not been accurately described by bibliographers. Nissen and Heilbrun differ in the listing of number of plates and misname the descriptions of the plates.‎

‎First edition of this extensive landmark work in natural science. After his death several other volumes were published making the total number of volumes 44. Together with Diderot's Encyclopaedia, this work represents the peak of book printing of the French enlightenment. Buffon was the first to sum up an entire natural history, based on science instead of theology"" It constitutes one of the first attempts to provide a comprehensive account of the natural world aiming at describing the entire known natural world - including plants, animals, and minerals - in a single work. Buffon based his work on first-hand observations and scientific analysis, rather than on second-hand accounts or mythological beliefs, making it a seminal work in the development of modern science. ""Buffon's ""Natural History, General and Particular"" presented for the first time a complete survey of natural history in a popular form [...] he was the first to present the universe as one complete whole and to find no phenomenon calling for any but a purely scientific explanation. In 1739, he was appointed Director of the Jardin du Roi (now Jardin des Plantes). It would appear that the 'Natural History germinated in the preparation of a catalogue of the royal collection. Buffon then enlarged its scope to Aristotelian or Plinian proportions and finally transformed it into a conspectus of nature of a breadth and depth previously unknown"". […] he was the first to present the universe as one complete whole and to find no phenomenon calling for any but a purely scientific explanation."" (PMM). Buffon's work had a significant impact upon the field of natural history and influenced many other scientists, including Charles Darwin"" In a part of the work, (""Des Epoqeus de la Nature"" (Supplement vol. V, 1778, present here)), Buffon attacked several Christian doctrines on natural science. He saw man as a part of the animal world, he objected to earth being only 6000 years old, and he dismissed a rigid classification system thus paving the way for Darwin's thoughts a century later:""Georges Buffon set forth his general views on species classification in the first volume of his Histoire Naturelle. Buffon objected to the so-called ""artificial"" classifications of Andrea Cesalpino and Carolus Linnaeus, stating that in nature the chain of life has small gradations from one type to another and that the discontinuous categories are all artificially constructed by mankind. Buffon suggested that all organic species may have descended form a small number of primordial types"" this is an evolution predominantly from more perfect to less perfect forms."" (Parkinson, Breakthroughs). ""Buffon's work is of exceptional importance because of its diversity, richness, originality, and influence. Buffon was among the first to create an autonomous science, free of any theological influence. He emphasized the importance of natural history and the great length of geological time. He envisioned the nature of science and understood the roles of paleontology, zoological geography, and animal psychology. He realised both the necessity of transformism and its difficulties. Although his cosmogony was inadequate and his theory of animal reproduction was weak, and although he did not understand the problem of classification, he did establish the intellectual framework within which most naturalists up to Darwin worked."" (DSB) From the library of Danish zoologist Jonas Collin (1840-1905), who issued a new edition of Kjærbølling's ""The Birds of Scandinavia"" in 1875-1877 (See Anker 251) - a work most likely inspired by his knowledge from his (i.e. the present) copy of Buffon's ""Histoire Naturelle"".The 'Histoire Générale' was widely reprinted and translated. Sometimes only individual sections were produced, other times the complete work appeared. PMM 198.Nissen 672.Brunet I, 376.Dibner 193.Sparrow p. 23.Anker 6.‎

‎Birds, Other Animals and Natural Cutiosities The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo : Series B: Natural History : Birds, Other Animals and Natural Cutiosities : 2 volumes,‎

‎, Brepols 2017, 2017 2 vols, 944 pages., 28 b/w ills, 428 col. ills, 220 x 285 mm, English, Hardcovers+dusjackets, Fine Condition! ISBN 9781909400603.‎

‎This two-volume catalogue brings together some of the finest natural history drawings assembled by Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588?1657) and his younger brother Carlo Antonio (1606?89) in Rome over the course of the seventeenth century. Included are 251 coloured drawings of fauna and 63 of precious stones, marbles, fossils, exotic fruits and seeds and other natural curiosities. Cassiano had a particular interest in ornithology, and birds are thus the best-represented animals in this group, with more than 200 drawings of both native and exotic species. Many were the models for the plates in a book on ornithology, the Uccelliera, which Cassiano co-authored and presented to the Accademia dei Lincei on his election to that scientific society in 1622. Several others were executed to accompany discourses written by Cassiano on individual birds, often following dissection of those birds. Other drawings of animals here include mammals, fishes, crustaceans and molluscs. The drawings of mineral specimens and natural curiosities illustrate items typically found in the collectors? cabinets of the period: gemstones, marbles, bezoars, corals, fossils, exotic seeds and scientific instruments. Many of the specimens came from the collections of Cassiano?s contemporaries and were the focal point of scientific investigations and discussion. To catalogue such a wide range of material, a team of historians of art and science and specialists from the fields of ornithology, zoology and geology has been assembled. The introductory essays discuss Cassiano?s engagement with nature and the collecting and illustrating of fauna and other naturalia in the seventeenth century. Documentary appendices provide transcriptions and translations of key manuscript sources. Following the dispersal of a large number of the natural history drawings from the Royal Library at Windsor Castle between the two world wars, many are now in public and private collections. They constitute more than a third of the drawings catalogued here, which allows Cassiano?s surviving holdings in these fields of natural history to be studied in their entirety. Review ?This two-volume publication in the long and impressive series of Cassiano dal Pozzo volumes on natural history is, if possible, my favourite. Like the other volumes it is beautifully produced. The quality of the essays is excellent throughout, and the editors and authors have done an impressive job in organizing this recalcitrant and heterogeneous material, making it accessible, and lucidly explaining to what extent we can still discern traces of its original organization (?) A top quality standard work for many decades!? (Florike Egmond, in the Journal of the History of Collections, 2017) These books are weighty, both literally (6,5kg) and figuratively. The accompanying text oozes scholarship and production values are high.? (Michael Brooke, in: The Art Newspaper, Nov. 2017, p. 21) The essays raise important questions concerning the relationships between natural history and natural philosophy, and between science and collection practices in this early modern period.? (Matthijs Jonker, in ISIS, 110/4, 2019, p. 826)‎

‎On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of New Species. [In: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History. Second Series, Volume 16]. - [INAUGURATING THE DISCOVERY OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES]‎

‎London, 1855. 8vo. Entire volume 16, second series of ""The Annals..."" present, bound in a very nice red half morocco with richly gilt spine. A nice, clean, fresh, and sturdy copy. A vague stamp to title-page (London Institution) and a blindstamped marking to top of first leaf of contents (Cranbrook Institute of Science). Pp. 184-196. [Entire volume: VII, 472 pp. + 11 plates].‎

‎Exceedingly scarce first printing of Wallace's very first publication on the theory of evolution, predating any publication on the subject by Darwin. This milestone paper in the history of the theory of evolution - ""A stunning scientific debut"" (Nature vol. 496, p. 162) - formulates what is now known as the ""Sarawak Law"", which is in essence half of the theory of evolution by natural selection, which Wallace would later (1858) so famously publicize together with Darwin. From as early as 1845, Wallace had been convinced of the idea that species arise through natural laws rather than by divine fiat and he invested all in supplying scientific details and uncovering a satisfactory evolutionary mechanism. He kept this more or less to himself, however, and refrained from commenting on it in public until 1855, when he, provoked by an article by Edward Forbes Jr., published this seminal paper, ""a concise synthesis of his ideas on the subject. Like many brilliant works, his ""On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species"" (September 1855) was based on well-known, acceptable scientific observations, although he had transformed the mass of facts into an unusually persuasive argument. The evidence was drawn from geology and geography - the distribution of species in time and space - and following nine acceptable generalizations (axioms), Wallace concluded: ""Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species"". He claimed that he had explained ""the natural system of arrangement of organic beings, their geographical distribution, their geological sequence"", as well as the reason for peculiar anatomical structures of organisms."" (D.S.B.). It was this paper by Wallace - not greatly read in the public, but very seriously studied by the greatest biologists of the time - that led directly to Darwin beginning his ""origin of Species"". - ""Despite this excellent presentation (i.e. Wallace's 1855 paper), there were no public replies, although the private comments were quite another matter. Indeed, Edward Blyth, Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin all read Wallace's article and were greatly impressed by his arguments, but in particular Lyell, who began a complete reexamination of his long-held ideas on species. On 16 April 1856 Lyell discussed Wallace's paper with Darwin, urging him to publish his own views on species as soon as possible. Darwin then began what we now call the long version of the ""Origin"", and that version was used as a basis for the ""Origin"" as published in 1859."" (D.S.B.).It was in 1848 that Wallace first left England for the tropics. He did so with his friend the entomologist Henry Walter Bates, with the specific intention of solving the problem of the origin of species. ""In the autumn of 1847 Mr. A.R. Wallace, who has since acquired wide fame in connection with the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection, proposed to me a joint expedition to the river Amazonas, for the purpose of exploring the Natural History of its banks"" the plan being to make for ourselves a collection of objects, dispose of the duplicates in London to pay expenses, and gather facts, as Mr. Wallace expressed it in one of his letters, ""towards solving the problem of the origin of species""."" (Bates I: p. III). It is during these travels that Wallace begins noticing the remarkable coincidences in the distribution of species in space and time, and in 1855, while sitting in Sarawak, Borneo, he writes the paper that is now a landmark work in the history of evolutionary thought, his so-called ""Sarawak-paper"", which was published later the same year in the present volume of ""The Annals and Magazine of Natural History"". ""This paper, formulating what came to be known as the ""Sarawak Law"", is remarkable... (Wallace) advances what is, in effect, half of the theory of evolution, namely what Darwin would call ""descent with modification"": the idea that the generation of a biological novelty is a genealogical process."" (Berry, p. XXVII). The law now known as the Sarawak Law, or ""the first half of the theory of eveolution"", is stated as follows: ""Every species has come into existence coincident both in time and space with a pre-existing closely allied species."" This law connected and explained a vast number of independent facts. It was, in fact, Wallace's first statement of a belief in evolution, and for the following three years from the time that he wrote the essay, Wallace recounts that ""the question of how changes of species could have been brought about was rarely out of my mind.""According to one of the most celebrated anecdotes in the history of science, the second half of the theory of evolution by natural selection finally came to Wallace in February 1858, while delirious during an attack of malarial fever in Ternate in the Mollucas. In his own words, ""there suddenly flashed upon me the idea of the survival of the fittest."" The theory was thought out during the rest of the fit, drafted the same evening, and written out in full in the two succeeding evenings. Knowing that Darwin was working on the same problem, Wallace sent a manuscript summary to Darwin, who now feared that his discovery would be pre-empted. In order to avoid conflict between the two, Joseph Hooker and Carles Lyell suggested a joint publication. The essay was read, together with an abstract of Darwin's own views, as a joint paper at the Linnean Society on the 1st of July 1858.‎

‎Jan van Kessel I (1626-1679): Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp ‎

‎, Brepols - Harvey Miller, 2016 Hardcover with dusjacket, VI+208 pages., 50 b/w ill. + 52 colour ill., 220 x 280 mm, Languages: English, FINE! ISBN 9781909400238.‎

‎The curious art of Jan van Kessel provides an intriguing lens through which to explore the intersections between craft practices, collecting, and the pursuit of natural knowledge in early modern Antwerp. The Antwerp artist Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-1679) was esteemed throughout Europe for producing finely-wrought, miniature paintings on copper that depict a wide range of flora and fauna, exotic landscapes, and objects of natural artistry (e.g. shells, coral, precious stones). The ?natural? world presented in Van Kessel?s art was not a transparent window onto nature, however, but instead was ambitiously crafted through the artist's reappropriation of Antwerp's artistic traditions, material culture, and artisanal knowledge practices. Through a combination of wit, technical virtuosity, self-referentiality, and allusions to local art-historical lineage, Van Kessel?s paintings encourage viewers to simultaneously think about art, in terms of collecting, connoisseurship, citation, and media, and think anew about nature. This study uses Van Kessel?s art as a distinctive lens through which to examine the relationship between craft, curiosity, and the pursuit of natural knowledge in the early modern period. Each chapter situates Van Kessel within a particular context where art and natural history intersected in late seventeenth-century Antwerp. Taken together, these investigations reveal how his production responded to a unique convergence of circumstances in that city which included the growth of a popular, commercial strand of natural history, a thriving culture of art collecting and connoisseurship focused on local artists, and a burgeoning luxury industry. Van Kessel?s material and conceptual interventions into the representation of nature, such as his innovative, painted ?cabinets without drawers? and witty signatures formed from insects and snakes, enabled him to redefine the scope of natural historical illustration and negotiate the value and status of the small-format cabinet picture. Nadia Baadj is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Institute for Art History at the Universitat Bern. Her research focuses on intersections between art and science as well as artists' materials and techniques in the early modern period, with a particular focus on Northern Europe. She has published in The Art Bulletin, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, and the Boletin del Museo del Prado. She has also contributed to exhibitions of Dutch and Flemish art at the Rijksmuseum, Frans Hals Museum, Clark Art Institute, and Ringling Museum of Art.‎

‎Collection of 13 Natural History Booksellers catalogues.‎

‎1895-1980 This collection includes the following: Felix L. Dames, 1895 (No. 30. Bibliotheken Oberbergraths v. Dücker und des Bezirksgeologen Halfar / Felix L. Dames, 1899 (No. 30. Bibliotheca Mariano de la Paz Graells III. Arachnida, Myriapoda, Crustacea) / Max Weg, 1925 (No. 183. Sonderangebot von Zeitschriften, Büchern und Sonderdrucken über Ornithologie) / Max Weg, 1932 (No 211. Hydrobiologie, hierin bibliothek Prof. Dr. C. Brandt. Teil I) / W. Junk, 1930 (No. 77. Periodica et Opera selecta) / W. Junk, 1932 (No. 80. Scientia naturalis) / W. Junk, 1932 (No. 81. Rarissima) / W. Junk, 1934 (No. 85. Periodica, Iconographiae, Rara et Curiosa) / W. Junk, n.d. (No. 95. Evertebrata) / Sotheby, 1967 (Catalogue of valuable printed books, science, autograph letters and historical documents) / Christies, 1969 (Printed Books. Natural History, Travel and Atlases and a few Manuscripts - with results list) / Christies, 1969 (Printed Books and Manuscripts - with results list) / Francis Edwards Limited, 1980 (No. 1032. Natural History).These come from the Wheldon & Wesley natural history booksellers firm. All have been used, thus with wear, some have annotations made by Wheldon & Wesley. Catalogues like these are extremely ephemeral, and have a low survival rate as most copies were thrown away after use.‎