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Item #41486 Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety. William HOOKER.
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Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety
Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety

Pomona Londinensis: Containing Coloured Engravings of the Most Esteemed Fruits Cultivated in the British Gardens, with a Descriptive Account of Each Variety

London: Published by the Author, 5 York Buildings, New Road, Marylebone; and Sold by J. Harding, St. James's Street; J. and A. Arch, Cornhill; and Rodwell and Martin, Bond Street. Printed by James Moyes, Greville Street, Hatton Garden, [1813]-1818. Imperial quarto. (13 1/8 x 9 13/16 inches). First edition. Volume I [all published]. [x]4 A-P4 Q-R2. 200 pp. 49 aquatint and stipple engraved plates, printed in color and hand-finished by Hooker after his own drawings. Letterpress title, dedication to the Horticultural Society of London, preface, index, I-XLIX of plates and letterpress descriptive text.

Half red morocco over red and black marbled cloth boards, five raised bands forming six compartments ruled gilt, with gilt-lettering in second compartment and gilt botanical center tool in rest, red and blue French curl marbled endpapers, top edge gilt

Important pomological work containing "among the best of all fruit prints," by an artist whose work is "equal or even superior to paintings of fruit by the great Pierre-Joseph Redouté." (Dunthorne)

Stearn writes in the introduction to Hooker's Finest Fruits that the present work includes "possibly the finest illustrations of fruit ever published, so lifelike and appetizing that one almost feels that they could be picked off the plate, so beautiful that they stand as works of art in their own right." Hooker served as the botanical artist to what is now London's Royal Horticultural Society, from 1812 until he retired in 1820. According to Blunt and Stearn, he was "one of the greatest pomological artists of all time." Hooker's aim in the present work was to focus on those fructal variants possessing distinctive qualities. Illustrated are 13 apples, 8 pears, 7 plums, 5 peaches, 4 nectarines, 4 cherries, 2 grapes, 1 apricot, 1 white currant, 1 cobnut, 1 raspberry, and 1 strawberry. "Growers round London provided him with fine samples, particularly Mr. Padley in charge of the gardens at Hampton Court Palace. He also illustrated fruits grown in Brompton, Highgate, Isleworth, Kew, Marylebone, Paddington, Richmond, Thames Ditton, and Twickenham in the London area, and others from Elton in Gloucestershire, Newington in Kent, and Wallington in Northumberland." [Blunt and Stearn]

Blunt and Stearn, p. 233. Bradley Bibliography III, p. 78. Dunthorne 139. Janson, Pomona's Harvest: An Illustrated Chronicle of Antiquarian Fruit Literature, p. 299. Nissen BBI 913. Raphael, An Oak Spring Pomona 42. Sitwell and Blunt, Great Flower Books, (1990) p. 103. Stearn and Roach, Hooker's Finest Fruits, passim.

Item #41486

Price: $12,000.00

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