Plantae selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini in hortis curiosorum nutrita manu artificiosa doctaque pinxit Georgius Dionysius Ehret

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THE PERTH COPY. First edition. Ten parts in one volume. [Nuremberg, 1750-1773]. Folio (525mm x 355mm): with 3 mezzotint portraits (Trew, Ehret and J.J. Haid; some examples have a fourth), 10 engraved section-titles heightened in red and gold (seven with ink numeration manuscript) and 100 hand-colored engraved plates by Johann Jacon and Johann Elias Haid after Ehret, heightened gilt. Bound in XXc red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, with the crest of the Earl of Perth gilt at the head. Without the general title (as often) or the two-decuria supplement issued by Vogel some 40 years after publication began. The Plantae Selectae is considered by Nissen to be the finest botanical work ever printed in Germany. Trew, physician at Nuremberg and amateur botanist, admired the talent and skill of his younger countryman, Georg Ehret, a gardener and flower painter. This work is their major collaboration, although Ehret did contribute several drawings to Trew's Hortus nitidissimis. Ehret is one of the great painters of flowering plants in the eighteenth century and all 100 plates of the Plantae selectae were painted by him. Trew died in 1769, leaving the last three parts uncompleted. The work was finished by Benedict Christian Vogel, Professor of Botany at the University of Altdorf. The work was conceived as early as 1742 when Trew wrote to Christian Thran in Carlsruhe: "Every year I receive some beautifully painted exotic plants (by Ehret) and have already more than one hundred of them, which with other pieces executed by local artists, should later on, Deo volante, constitute an appendix to Weinmann s publication but will, I hope, find a better reception than his." In 1748, agreement was reached that Johann Jacob Haid from Augsburg should provide the engravings, and the first part appeared in 1750. Trew died before the text of the last three decuriae was written and before the illustrations of Decuriae IX and X were printed. Ex coll. John David Drummond, 17th Earl of Perth (1907-2002); from his sale, Christie's London 20 November 2003, lot 58. Dunthorne 309; Great Flower Books, p. 78; Hunt 539; Nissen BBI 1997; Stafleu-Cowan 15.131. N° de ref. del artículo T000241

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