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Wilkes English Moths and Butterflies

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Wilkes English Moths and Butterflies
Wilkes English Moths and Butterflies
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Description
The English Moths and Butterflies: together with the plants, flowers, and fruits whereon they feed, and are usually found.being copied from the subjects themselves, and painted on the best atlas Paper. Benjamin Wilkes (fl.1740-1750), Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770) and Jacob van Huysum. London: Benjamin Wilkes, [ca 1747-1749]. Guidance: Christie's, 2007, 11,250 GBP. 4to., (12 2/8 x 10 inches). 2-page list of Subscribers (preliminaries a bit browned). 120 EXCEPTIONALLY FINE engraved plates with contemporary hand-colour, the plants after drawings by Ehret and van Huysum. Contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt, the spine in seven compartments with six raised bands, black morocco lettering-piece in one, the others finely decorated with small gilt tools of birds and bees (skillfully rebacked preserving most of the original spine, extremities worn with minor loss, hinges weak). Modern brown morocco clamshell box to style. Provenance: Contemporary inscription obscured at the head of the title-page, and plate numbers added to the contents and each plate; 19th-century penciled inscription "This was the author's own copy & bo. at the sale of his Books by J.C." [?Sir Henry St John Carew St John-Mildmay, 4th Baronet (1787-1848)] on the verso of the front free endpaper; 19th-century engraved armorial Dogmersfield Library bookplate of the St.-John Mildmay family on the front paste-down. First edition. Little is known about Benjamin Wilkes. "In the preface to the work, he tells us that 'painting of History Pieces and Portraits in Oyl' was his profession, but that he often felt at a loss to understand what colours would contrast and set each other off to best advantage. Then a friend invited him to a meeting of the Aurelian Society, dedicated to the study of insects. Here, he first saw specimens of butterflies and moths which in their disposition, arrangement and contrasting colours struck him 'with amazement' and convinced him that nature would be his 'best instructor'. Over the next ten years he spent his leisure time collecting, studying and drawing caterpillars, chrysalids and flies, greatly assisted by the well known naturalist Mr Joseph Dandridge to whose collection he had free access. This publication was the culmination of this work, a perfect combination of artistic skill and specialist scientific observation. Wilkes' first publication on the subject had appeared in 1742. Entitled "Twelve new designs of English butterflies" (1742), it contained no printed text but consisted solely of twelve engraved plates, depicting butterflies arranged geometrically in groups. It was published by Wilkes 'against the Horn Tavern in Fleet Street. Where any gentleman or lady may see his collection of insects'." (Glasgow University Special Collections Library). Like his father before him Ehret trained as a gardener, initially working on estates of German nobility, and painting flowers only occasionally, another skill taught him by his father, who was a good draughtsman. Ehret’s “first major sale of flower paintings came through Dr Christoph Joseph Trew, eminent physician and botanist of Nuremberg, who recognized his exceptional talent and became both patron and lifelong friend. Ehret sent him large batches of watercolours on the fine-quality paper Trew provided. In 1733 Trew taught Ehret the botanical importance of floral sexual organs and advised that he should show them in detail in his paintings. Many Ehret watercolours were engraved in Trew's works, such as ‘Hortus Nitidissimus’ (1750–86) and ‘Plantae selecta’e (1750–73), in part two of which (1751) Trew named the genus Ehretia after him. “During 1734 Ehret travelled in Switzerland and France, working as a gardener and selling his paintings. While at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, he learned to use body-colour on vellum, thereafter his preferred medium. In 1735 he travelled to England with letters of introduction to patrons including Sir Hans Sloane and Philip Miller, curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden. In the spring of 1736 Ehret spent three months in the Netherlands. At the garden of rare plants of George Clifford, banker and director of the Dutch East India Company, he met the great Swedish naturalist, Carl Linnaeus, who was then formulating his new classification based on plant sexual organs. Ehret painted a Tabella (1736), illustrating the system, and sold engravings of it to botanists in Holland. Some of his paintings of the exotics were engraved in Linnaeus's “Hortus Cliffortianus” (1737). “[Ehret] signed and dated his work, naming the subject in pre-Linnaean terms. He published a florilegium, “Plantae et papiliones rariores” (1748–62), with eighteen hand-coloured plates, drawn and engraved by himself... Ehret also provided plant illustrations for several travel books. His distinctive style greatly influenced his successors” (Enid Slatter for DNB). Engelmann p.557; Hagen p.289; Lisney 185; Nissen ZB1 4410.
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Wilkes English Moths and Butterflies

Estimate $12,000 - $16,000
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Starting Price $9,500
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