WILKES, Benjamin (fl.1740-1750)

Lot 185
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Vendu
£ 3 024
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événementRoyaume-Uni, London
Commissionsee on Website%
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ID 993180
Lot 185 | WILKES, Benjamin (fl.1740-1750)
Valeur estimée
£ 2 000 – 3 000
WILKES, Benjamin (fl.1740-1750)

The English Moths and Butterflies: together with the plants, flowers, and fruits whereon they feed and are usually found. [Edited, arranged and prefaced by Henry Baker]. London: printed for and sold by Benjamin Wilkes, [1749?].

First edition with fine hand-coloured plates. Wilkes' work illustrates all three stages of each specimen's development, and each plate is carefully designed with an artist's eye for layout, and also shows each insect with its food plant. Wilkes formed 'his own collection of English lepidoptera, making sketches of the various stages in the life histories of many species as possible. Encouraged by Mr. Joseph Dandridge, ... Wilkes decided to begin publication of the notes on the native lepidoptera which he had compiled over a period of ten years, illustrating these with his own drawings'. Paul Whalley quotes a letter from Henry Baker to William Arderon dated 17 August 1749. 'I am pleased to find the trifles I sent you proved all agreeable. The Natural History of Butterflies is in some sort my own child, having myself compiled it and put it in the order it is now, from Mr. Wilkes memorandums, he being indefatigable in his observations and faithful in the minuting down every particular but for the want of learning quite incapable of writing a book' (see J. Soc. Biblphy. nat. Hist. [1972] 6 [2]: 127). Engelmann p.557; ESTC T32700; Hagen p.289; Lisney pp.121 and 185; Nissen ZBI 4410.



Large quarto (304 x 252mm). 2pp. subscribers' list, 120 fine hand-coloured engraved plates after Wilkes of butterflies and moths among plants and flowers (occasional light spotting and browning, some light stains). Modern brown morocco, spine in compartments with raised bands gilt.





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Adresse de l'enchère CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
Royaume-Uni
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12.07.2023 – 12.07.2023
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Plus du Créateur

WILKES, Benjamin (fl. 1742)
WILKES, Benjamin (fl. 1742)
£1 000

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