This wonderful, crisp engraving originates from Johannes Zorn's Florilegium of Medicinal Plants, published in Nuremberg between 1784 & 1790. Appears to be on gorgeous, thick handmade chain-lined laid paper.
Plates from these volumes are rare, & especially scarce to find them un-colored. The beauty of non-colored engravings is that the sculpted, incised lines carved into the copper are revealed un-obscured by paint. This set which I'll be listing individually shows the beauty of the engraver's art, expertly done in this series in minute detail. They will make wonderful, subtle, fascinating, rare & authentic framed displays in groups or singles.
The Volumes:
The complete work was published in 6 volumes, exquisitely illustrated with 600 copperplate engravings. It is an outstanding work with parallel text in German & Latin. This is an extremely rare work, in excellent condition, illustrating a wide variety of botanicals such as iris, water lily, violet, strawberry, herbs, spices & many more.
The Author & Editor:
Johannes Zorn (1739–1799) was a German pharmacist, botanist and botanical illustrator. After his studies in pharmacy, Zorn became an apothecary in his hometown. He made extensive trips across Europe to collect medicinal plants, and between 1779 and 1790 published 6 volumes of "Icones plantarum medicinalium" (the present work) in Nuremberg in which he illustrated and described over 600 medicinal plants.
Condition:
Appears to be in excellent condition for a nearly 230-year-old engraving. Virtually pristine, very little age-toning. The quality of the work is superb. These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.
Text Page(s): This one comes without original text page(s). I've included a scan of a title page from one of the related volumes for reference, it's not part of this listing.
Size: 8-1/2 x 5-1/2" approximately
Combined Shipping:
Yes! Multiple prints can be combine into one Priority Mail flat-rate envelope or package. Larger prints may need to be shipped in tube. eBay should auto-combine your items if you put all of your selections into your shopping cart & check out all together as one order.If you purchase them individually, eBay charges shipping on each, which I then will refund after. If you're assessed multiple shipping charges for one combined package, I will endeavor to refund any overage asap.
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Please note: The information I've included in this listing is based on my best research as an enthusiast of these works, not a professional historian of antiquarian books & prints. I do like to offer researched some background information readily available to me but make no claims representations of total accuracy. Any corrections or further information you might offer would certainly appreciated! The scans in the images are my best efforts to accurately show the item. Antique prints & old paper are notoriously tricky to scan accurately. In my experience, scanners tend to be thrown off by the off-whites & gradations in age-toned paper. If the scanner produces a scan that's too dark or too brown, etc, I'll often try to reasonably color-correct to represent the print as accurately as possible. I'm not a professional in color-correcting images yet I try my best to show the print as close to the original as possible. I also find that different monitors show colors differently, & eBay's system can sometimes throw off the colors a bit in the uploaded JPEG images as they appear on their site. I do take great pains to make these listings as professional as possible. Thank you!