‎Anonymous,‎
‎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. 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.‎

‎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, Hardcover, . 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)‎

‎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.‎

‎F. Birge. Natural history. Illustrated natural history for initial acquaintance ‎

‎"F. Birge. Natural history. Illustrated natural history for initial acquaintance and self-study. 500 drawings (300 pictures on 16 colorized and 8 black tables outside the text and 200 images in the text). Translation from the 3rd German supplemented edition by N. S. Poniatsky assistant at the Botany Department at Moscow University; with a foreword by K.A. Timiryazev. M.: I. Knebel 1911. 19-32 35- 297 p. 11 pages of illustrations; 21x15 sm./F. Birge. Estestvennaya istoriya. Illyustrirovannaya estestvennaya istoriya dlya pervonachalnogo oznakomleniya i dlya samoobucheniya. 500 risunkov (300 ris. na 16 raskrashennykh i 8 chernykh tablitsakh vne teksta i 200 ris. v tekste). Perevod s 3-go nemetskogo dopolnennogo izdaniya N.S. Ponyatskogo..F. Birge. Natural history. Illustrated natural history for initial acquaintance and self-study. 500 drawings (300 pictures on 16 colorized and 8 black tables outside the text and 200 images in the text). Translation from the 3rd German supplemented edition by N. S. Poniatsky assistant at the Botany Department at Moscow University; with a foreword by K.A. Timiryazev. M.: I. Knebel 1911. 19-32 35- 297 p. 11 pages of illustrations; 21x15 sm. SKUbd-361ef0b854437699."‎

‎Engelhardt M.-Struve W. Initial foundations of natural history and land descript‎

‎Engelhardt M.-Struve W. Initial foundations of natural history and land description. First Division. Natural history. In Russian (ask us if in doubt)/Engelgardt M.-Struve V. Nachalnye osnovaniya estestvennoy istorii i zemleopisaniya. Pervoe OtdelenieEngelhardt M.-Struve W. Initial foundations of natural history and land description. First Division. Natural history. In Russian (ask us if in doubt)/Engelgardt M.-Struve V. Nachalnye osnovaniya estestvennoy istorii i zemleopisaniya. Pervoe Otdelenie. Estestvennaya istoriya.Derpt In I.K. Shinmans University Printing House 1839 2 nn. 178 p. We have thousands of titles and often several copies of each title may be available. Please feel free to contact us for a detailed description of the copies available. SKUalb6548bcc2ba15132b‎