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Lot 308
Sale 759 - Selections from the Library of Gerald and Barbara Weiner
Oct 8, 2020
10:00AM CT
Live / Chicago
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$4,000 -
6,000
Lot Description
MICHAUX, François-André (1770-1855). The North American Sylva. Paris: C. d'Hautel, 1819.
3 volumes, 8vo (249 x 160 mm). Half-titles, 156 color stipple-engraved plates and finished by hand by Gabriel, Bessin, Renard, Cailly, and others after Pancrace Bessa, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, and Henri-Joseph Redouté. (Mostly marginal spotting, light toning to a few plates vol. III, gutter margin reinforced between pp.2-3 vol. III.) Contemporary half green calf backed marbled boards, spines in 5 compartments with 4 raised bands decorated in gilt and blind, red morocco lettering pieces gilt (rebacked preserving original spines and endpapers, rubbing to extremities).
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, translated by A.L. Hillhouse, containing the findings of François-André Michaux and his father André, who explored the southern Appalachians, Spanish Florida, the Bahamas, the Carolinas, and the midwest, as well as Canada (including Hudson's Bay). The first edition contained 138 plates, and the present edition was enlarged to include 156 plates from the drawings by Pancrace Bessa (1772-1846), Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), and Henri-Joseph Redouté (1776-1852). The work remained the definitive text on the subject until the publication of Charles Singer Sargent's Silva of North America (1891-1902). Sabin notes that of the English editions "this, notwithstanding some typographical errors, is the best." Sabin 48694.



