ECTYPA VEGETABILIUM USIBUS MEDICIS PRAECIPUE DESTINATORUM ET IN PHARMACOPOLIIS OBVIORUM VARIISQUE MODIS PRAEPARATORUM AD NATURAE SIMILITUDINEM EXPRESSA by LUDWIG, Christian Gottllieb - 1760 [-1764]

Halle: Johann Gottfried Trampe for Johann Christoph Breitkopf in Leipzig, 1760 [-1764]. First Edition. Hardcover. Some mild offsetting from the strength of the colors, a few plates with light spotting to fore-margin. Near Fine and quite scarce. Folio (8-3/4" x 14-3/4") bound in twentieth century brown half-morocco leather. Illustrated with 200 hand-colored, nature-printed plates with letterpress legends in Latin and German and with additional legends neatly added in ink in a contemporary hand. The ONLY edition of THE MAJOR COLORED NATURE-PRINTED BOOK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Published over four years in eight parts with a series of 25 plates in each, the plant took the place of the woodblock or engraved plate in the process of reproduction. With the specimens arranged and covered with a dark dust, the outlines formed on the paper were then colored either by hand or a combined color-printing and hand-coloring process. The specimens were delicate and could sustain only the smallest of print runs. DUNTHORNE 188; NISSEN, BBI 1252.