On classifying mid-Atlantic evergreens - photo 1

On classifying mid-Atlantic evergreens

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$ 35 280
Auction dateClassic
25.05.2022 17:00UTC -04:00
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CHRISTIE'S
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USA, New York
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ID 752748
Lot 27 | On classifying mid-Atlantic evergreens
On classifying mid-Atlantic evergreensJohn Bartram, 1753BARTRAM, John (1699-1777). Autograph letter signed ("John Bartram") to Jan Fredrick Gronovius, 6 December 1753.Two pages, bifolium (194 x 156mm). Docketed on verso, mounting strip affixed to left margin bears handwritten identification (seal tear holes infilled paperclip mark on verso, small hole from ink erosion).John Bartram on his classification system. An extremely rare letter written to his fellow botanist and the author of Flora Virginica. Bartram writes of his concern over the two-year hiatus in his correspondence with his Dutch colleague, to whom he had sent specimens two years ago that consisted of "A Box of curious stones & fos[s]ils with A letter; & last year I wrote to thee again," and had been expecting "Peter Calms Catalogue of our american Plants," but had yet to receive it. Bartram had assisted Peter Kalm, the Finnish botanist, during his extended collecting trip to North America from 1748 to 1750, and had recently completed his own treatise following extensive travels in western New York and Canada, published in London in 1751. With the assistance of his colleagues Gronovius, Peter Collinson, and Carl Linnaeus, Bartram sought to collect as much information as possible for a treatise on the evergreens of Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey—a project that we was unable to complete, in part due to disruptions of war, as well as clashes with Collinson over grammatical errors and with Gronovius on the subject of illustrations. Bartram writes that he had forwarded to his friend and financial backer, Peter Collinson, "a perticular description of all our species of oaks & evergreens: by which you may easily know how many we have & how to distinguish one from another," while offering his "thoughts of going through with all our forrest trees & shrubs which will amount to near one hundred & fifty different species." Bartram writes that he favors "green specimin[s] … taken from trees of midling growth neither too young or ould, too luxuriant or declining." In describing each, he first describes the "general character of each genus; then ye discription of each species, with its perticular distinguishing character by which it may be certainly known from ye other species in what soil or situation soever it is found growing in." A superb and rare letter from the American botanist marking the hopeful start of an ultimately unrealized project. Published in Berkeley & Berkeley eds. Letters of John Bartram, pp. 356-357). John Bartram letters are seldom encountered in the market.
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