Stirling-Maxwell, Sir William - Vesalius, Andreas Tabulae anatomicae sex Six anatomical tables. London: privately printed for Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, 1874. Large folio, engraved presentation page printed in red, title-page printed in red and black, 1 engraved portrait plate, 6 anatomical plates, original quarter maroon morocco, spine lettered in gilt, marbled boards, extremities rubbed, short split to lower outer joint, one of thirty copies



Note: One of Stirling-Maxwell's 'pioneering books of facsimile prints using the new photolithographic methods' (ODNB), of which 28 copies were printed, in addition to one copy on vellum and one on parchment. A set of six oversized broadsides, the Tabulae anatomicae sex, originally printed at Venice in 1538, were designed to be mounted on the wall for reference during dissections and, as a result, only two complete copies of the original printings of the six oversized anatomical plates survived. One set is in the Bibliotheca nazionale Marciana of Venice. Another, which became the basis for this edition, was purchased in 1857 by Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, and is now in the Hunterian Library in Glasgow. There is a third set in the Biblioteca statale di Cremona (USTC 764591). Library Hub traces only four copies of the 1874 edition in UK institutions (Glasgow, Oxford, Royal Academy, and Royal Society of Medicine.) Provenance: 1) Christie’s, The Property of Archibald Stirling of Keir, 22-24 May 1995, lot 712. 2)The Late Lord David Douglas-Hamilton (1952-2020).