[Rarebooks] FS: Scarce American Color Plate Fruit Book, price reduced
Charles Agvent
charles at charlesagvent.com
Wed Jun 22 12:01:09 EDT 2016
Here is an opportunity to acquire an important and rare piece of
Americana at an excellent price. While copies with black-and-white
engravings are easily found, copies with color plates are exceptionally
scarce. A copy priced higher than our original price recently sold by a
noted Americana dealer. No other copy is on the market as far as we can
tell. The only auction record we could find was for a copy with 70
plates that sold at Sotheby's in 1999 for $7,475. Price reduced to
$4500 NET
DOWNING, A[ndrew] J[ackson]. THE FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES OF AMERICA; OR,
THE CULTURE, PROPAGATION, AND MANAGEMENT, IN THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD, OF
FRUIT TREES GENERALLY; WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF ALL THE FINEST VARIETIES OF
FRUIT, NATIVE AND FOREIGN, CULTIVATED IN THIS COUNTRY. New York &
London: Wiley and Putnam, 1847. First Edition. Quarto in 6s (6" x
9-3-8") bound in recent dark brown calf leather-backed marbled boards
with burgundy and green morocco spine labels, lettered and decorated in
gilt on the spine; xiv, 594 pages: lacks 8 text pages (103-106 and
135-138). Illustrated with 65 hand-colored lithograph plates by
Lemercier of Paris and over 200 wood-engraved illustrations in the text.
THE FIRST EDITION WITH COLORED PLATES of the most important and
influential book on pomology published in America. First published in
1845, the book went through some 20 editions until 1900. All of the
early editions are rare, and only two, published in 1847 and 1850,
contain color plates and are also printed on larger paper. The plates
were colored by hand and finished by Lemercier of Paris from drawings
made in America. The text makes no reference to these exquisite color
plates of apples, pears, cherries, plums, berries, and other fruits, and
as Plesch (page 219) says, they "seem to have crept into the volume by
stealth." It has been supposed that there was no fixed edition; perhaps
copies were put together as the demand warranted, and as a result the
plate count varies from copy to copy. Both the Plesch and the Bennett
(page 35) copies, for example, had 69 plates, though both were the later
1850 edition. The only other copy recently on the market contained 67
plates. The text is foxed throughout, heaviest to the title page and
less so to the color plates, two of which have tears (not in the image)
repaired from the back with archival tape. A few small areas of loss of
color but nothing significant. In spite of its faults, a rare,
beautiful, and desirable book in a Fine binding. (#016956) $7,500.00
www.charlesagvent.com/shop/agvent/016956.html
--
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free to contact us with any wants or offerings. Thank you.
CHARLES AGVENT
291 Linden Road
Mertztown, PA 19539-8750
610-682-4750
info at charlesagvent.com
Please visit our shop: http://www.charlesagvent.com
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