1828 Nees Esenbeck Big Hand-Colored Botanical Folio, PIPER CUBEBA (Pepper)

The Volumes:
Originally published in 18 parts, from 1821-1828 with a supplement issued in 5 parts from 1829-1833, the Plantes Medicinales comprised 2 volumes with 558 magnificent, large lithographed plates by M. F. Weihe, J. W. Wolter & P. W. Funke after A. Henry in total (of which 550 in fine hand-coloring and 8 in black and white).

The Author:
Theodor Friedrich Ludwig Nees von Esenbeck (1787 – 1837) was a German botanist and pharmacologist, who was born in Schloss Reichenberg near Reichelsheim (Odenwald). He was a younger brother to naturalist Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776–1858).

In 1805 Nees von Esenbeck was an apprentice to pharmacist Wilhelm Martius in Erlangen, and in 1811 moved to Basel, where he worked for the Bernoulli family at the Goldenen Apotheke. In 1817 his friend, zoologist Heinrich Kuhl (1797–1821) procured an assignment for him at the University of Leiden as a reader of botany, and shortly afterwards, with the help of botanist Sebald Justinus Brugmans (1763–1819), he held a position at the botanical gardens in Leiden. In 1818 he earned his doctorate at the university, and subsequently moved to Bonn, where he worked at the botanical gardens. In 1827 he attained the title of "full professor" at the University of Bonn, where he was a colleague of Ludolph Christian Treviranus (1779–1864).

Nees von Esenbeck is largely remembered for pharmacological analysis and taxonomy of various medicinal plants. In the mid-1830s, with Philipp Wilhelm Wirtgen (1806–1870) and Ludwig Clamor Marquart (1804–1881), he was co-founder of the Botanischer Verein am Mittel- und Niederrhein (Botanical Society of the Middle and Lower Rhine).

The plant genus Neesia in the subfamily Bombacoideae was named after him by botanist Carl Ludwig Blume (1796–1862).

The Technique:
These prints were individually made by hand. The originals were hand-painted watercolor drawings from actual specimens, these images were then drawn onto thick, massive lithographic stones in a waxy ink that resists water.

The stone is then sponged with water, which soaks into the limestone. When the stone is inked with a roller, it sticks only to the water-repellent drawing, & leaves the bare wet stone clean. The print is then transferred to the paper, which is laid atop the stone & cranked through by hand under pressure in a special lithograph press.

Stone lithography allowed for fluid drawing & subtle toning, which were much more difficult to achieve in copperplate engravings, & bypassed the need for an engraver & the tedious inking process of metal plates. It also made the sort of fine detail achieved in these plates challenging, since a crayon or brush was used, instead of a sharp steel point cutting grooves in copper as with copperplate engraving.

Stone lithography is entirely different than present-day offset lithographs, apart from the use of water to resist ink.

Condition:
Good condition, age-toning to the paper as one typically finds with these, minor antiquarian character & light, marginal foxing. Hand-coloring remains bright & vivid. Translated titles are neatly & lightly penciled below the printed binomial Latin, in a fine cursive hand, adding character & history.  The paper is remarkably flat & crisp for a bookplate this old. Please peruse the photos.

These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.

Text Page(s):
This one comes without original page(s) of text. Included in the photos is a scan of a title-page from this work, it's not part of the listing.

Size: 18 x 11 inches approximately.