Rare Botanical Book Up For Auction

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jun 2nd 2007 at 9:05AM

PBA Galleries is offering another rare book for auction. This one is actually a set of Johann Wilhelm Weinmann's Duidelyke Vertoning, also known as the Phytanthoza Iconographia. The four-volume set was published in Amsterdam from 1736 to 1748 and contained some 1,025 plates of plants, many of them color mezzotints and considered the first successful use of color printing in a botanical work. This version has the text and plates interspersed and is listed with an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. The book is up for bid on June 14 and the auction's listing has a few more pictures from this beautiful work.

Tags: art, auction, book, botanical illustration, rare book