Duidelyke Vertoning

8 vol. (4 of text, 4 of plates), folio: [90]-32-280 pp., [2] pp., pl. 1/275.- [2]-538 pp., [2] pp., pl. 276/525. - [2]-500 pp., [2] pp.- pl. 526/775. - [2]-619 pp., [2] pp.-pl. 776/1025 (a few pl. sl. browned, some sm. and faint water stains on upper margins in 4th plate-vol., in all very good condition of the pl.). Contemporary brown mottled calf, gilt ornemented spines with 6 raised bands, red leather title labels.

404 x 250 mm.

Weinmann, Johann Wilhelm. Duidelyke Vertoning, eeniger duizend in alle vier waerelds deelen wassende bomen, stammen, kruiden, bloemen, vrugten, en uitwassen, &c. [...] Nevens een register in meest alle taalen, van de naamen der kruiden [...].
Amsterdam, Zacharias Romberg, 1736-1748.

First and only Dutch edition of the florilegium "Phytanthoza iconographia" (first Latin 1737-1745) by the German apothecary and botanist J.W. Weinmann (1683-1741). 
Stafleu & Cowan, 17.050 ; Nissen (BBI), 2126 ; Pritzel, 10140.

Extremely valuable record of the plant kingdom as it was understood in the mid-eighteenth century and the outcome of a very ambitious project which resulted in eight folio volumes with more than 1000 hand-coloured engravings of several thousand plants.

Complete with 1025 plates including both colour-printed mezzotints with added hand-colouring, and hand-coloured copper-engravings showing algae, bulbs, flowering plants, vegetables, fruits, shrubs, and trees (14 are double-page and 2 folding); a mezzotint allegorical frontispiece of Ceres with attendants by J.J. Haid after Baumgartner and two mezzotint portraits of Weimann and Bieler by Haid after M.C. Hirschman; and a half-page engraving above the dedicatory. Subscribers' list in volume I. All titles in red and black and with engr. vignettes on each.
The work is most famous for its spectacular and ground-breaking newly developed printing process using coloured mezzotint, which allowed greater detail and shading, and was finished off by hand-colouring. Weinmann employed the young Georg Dionysius Ehret as illustrator.

It became his first published work and he contributed several hundred drawings for which he received miserly payment. This led to a dispute between the two which is perhaps why Ehret is nowhere acknowledged in the book. Ehret was replaced by N. Asamin, a talented young woman. The massive publishing project was financed by Bartholomaus Seuter, one of the engravers, who was helped by Johann Ridinger, and in the later volumes by Johann Jakob Haid. The texts were written by J.G.N. Dieterichs, succeeded by his son Ludwig Michael and completed after Weinmann's death by Ambrosius Karl Bieler.

“Weinmann's magnum opus is a full record of the flowers, fruit and vegetables cultivated in the early 18th century, based on Weinmann's own collection, and guided by the hand of Georg Dionysius Ehret. 
Many are 'of particular interest on account of the colour printing, especially the plates of Aloes and Cactus depicted in pots of different designs, and the folding plates of gourds” (Dunthorne).

Admirable exemplaire complet de ses 1025 planches en coloris d’époque conservé dans sa reliure du temps.