TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 1
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 2
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 3
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 4
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 5
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 6
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769) - photo 7

TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769)

Lot 159
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 88 200
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 870887
Lot 159 | TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769)
Estimate value
£ 80 000 – 120 000
TREW, Christoph Jakob (1695-1769)

Hortus nitidissimis omnem per annum superbiens floribus sive amoenissimorum florum imagines. Edited by Johann Michael Seligmann (volume I) and Adam Ludwig Wirsing (volumes II-III). Nuremberg: the heirs of Johann Michael Seligmann (volume I) and Adam Ludwig Wirsing (volumes II-III), [1750]-1751-[1756]-1768-1772-1786-[1792].

One of the most magnificent of all botanical works, with an unusually full complement of 176 plates; 'One of the finest records of the cultivated flowers of the period' (Dunthorne). The book contains a substantial contribution of plates from Georg Dionysius Ehret, the greatest botanical flower painter of the 18th century, and has been described by Blunt & Stearn as: 'one of the most decorative florilegia of the mid-eighteenth century [...] aimed at presenting “a complete collection of the most magnificent tulips and crown imperials; the sweetest hyacinths, daffodils, narcissi and jonquils; the most charming roses, carnations and snowflakes; and the loveliest lilies, fritillaries, ranunculuses, anemones and auriculas”’ (p.166).



Johann Michael Seligmann (1720-1762) was an artist-engraver based in Nuremberg, best known for ornithological works after Mark Catesby and George Edwards. In 1750, he started to produce the present work based on the collections and cabinet of the celebrated botanist Dr Christoph Trew. The Hortus nitidissimis brought together images of the greatest beauty in engravings ‘so heavily and well coloured that engraved lines are scarcely visible’ (Dunthorne). In George Ehret, Trew patronised one of the most important nature artists of the period, and nearly a quarter of the plates in the present lot are engraved after Ehret’s work. ‘Plantae selectae [...] and Hortus nitidissimis [...] are Ehret's two masterpieces among flower books [...] A preference may be expressed for Hortus, since it contains so many of the florists' flowers, and of these, Ehret was, it may be, the foremost painter that has ever lived’ (Great Flower Books 1990, pp.15-16).



Seligmann’s productivity appears to have been low (Tjaden believes his average output can only have been two plates every three months), although by 1756 letterpress descriptive text of hyacinths, tulips and ranunculus had appeared. Written by G.L. Huth, this is present in the current lot. Also accounting for the work’s rarity, demand for such a luxury item was low due to the Seven Years War (1756-1763). The book’s publication history became increasingly fractured with the death of Seligmann in 1762, when two engravers, J.F. Mayer (styled as the ‘heirs of Seligmann’) and A.L. Wirsung, took on the project. They engaged a classical scholar and linguist, G.G. von Murr, to complete the text, which he did by slightly altering Huth’s existing text and extending it to cover the remaining plants depicting in the plates. The present lot contains this text – published in 1768 – thus preserving both variants of the letterpress covering hyacinths, tulips and ranunculuses. Murr also contributed the text to the second volume, published in 1772, while the text (not present in this copy) to the third volume, published in 1786, was written by an unknown author.



Publication in successive parts over 42 years, coupled with rarity, explains the uncertainty among bibliographers about the total of plates printed. No copy with more than 176 plates has been sold at auction in the past 20 years, and only 5 of the copies held in the major repositories of botanical literature contain more than 179 plates: Arnold Arboretum, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, British Library copy, Hunt Botanical Library copy (186 plates only), and the Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden (180 plates only).



W.L. Tjaden, ‘Hortus Nitidissimus’ in Taxon 20(4) 461-466, 1971; Arnold Arboretum p.700 (calling for 188 plates); BM(NH) V, p.2138; Brunet V, col.943 (calling for 190 plates, 'ouvrage bien exécutée, mais qui se trouve rarement complet'); Dunthorne 310 (calling for 178 plates); Great Flower Books (1990) p.144 (calling for 180 plates); Johnston 493 (calling for 188 plates); Nissen BBI 1995 (calling for 178 plates, but citing Arnold Arboretum); Pritzel 9500 (calling for 180 plates); Stafleu and Cowan 15.130 (callling for 188 plates); cf. Blunt & Stearn, The Art of Botanical Illustration (1994), p.166; Hunt 539, note (‘exceedingly rare work’).



3 volumes bound in 2, folio (490 x 350mm). 176 (of 188, lacking 177-190) hand-coloured etched and engraved figures on 174 sheets, some printed in coloured ink, heightened with gum arabic, numbered 1-176, figures 60/61 and 121/122 both on one sheet, by Johann Michael Seligmann, Johann Michael Stock and Adam Ludwig Wirsing after Barbara Regina Dietzsch, Georg Dionysius Ehret, Nikolaus Friedrich Eisenberger, Johann Christoph Keller and others, 4 of which folding; letterpress titles and text in Latin and German, with both 1756 and 1768 variants of text to vol. I present, woodcut initials and head- and tailpieces (vol I: light marginal staining extending from pl.40 to end of vol. heavier towards end, 3 text leaves with light marginal staining and one text leaf with light finger-soiling; vol. II: letterpress text lightly browned and some occasional staining, pl. 60/61 with some light creasing at extremities and light finger-soiling, some faint even browning to plates vol. III: with letterpress title, preface and index but lacking descriptive text). Contemporary catspaw calf, gilt spines, red edges (rebacked preserving original spines, extremities lightly rubbed).





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