MAYER, Johann Prokop (1735-1804)

Pomona Franconica: Description Des Arbres Fruitiers, les plus connus et les plus estimés en Europe, qui se cultivent maintenant Au Jardin De La Cour De Wurzbourg. [Pomona Franconica: oder natürliche Abbildung und Beschreibung der besten und vorzüglichsten Europäischen Gattungen der Obstbäume und Früchte, welche in dem hochfürstlichen Hofgarten zu Würzburg gezogen werden]

Nuremberg: Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt, 1776. 2 volumes in one, 4to. (9 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches). Volume I with 8 plates of Apricots, 8 of Almonds, and 17 of Plums. Folding plan of the garden, and several details of espalier trees and garden design on headpieces. Volume II with 31 plates of Cherries and 9 of Azeroles or Medlars. Total 73 plates (of 110 in Volumes I and II), frontispiece, and folding plan. Plates printed in green ink and coloured by hand with careful opaque colouring.

Finely bound in contemporary full red morocco

Provenance: Philip Hofer (1898-1984) renowned collector of books on the Graphic Arts

A magnificently bound work with some of the finest German pomological illustrations ever published: "A delightful and charming work" (Dunthorne)

This work, the first comprehensive printed pomona of Franconia, was limited to 110 copies. Complete sets are very scarce: no copies are listed as having sold at auction during the past twenty five years, and Bunyard, in 1915, noted that the work was 'now extremely scarce in a complete state'. From 1770 Johann Prokop Mayer served as head gardener of the gardens of the 'Residenz' or palace of the Prince Bishop of Würzburg, Adam Friedrich von Speinheim. Mayer had previously trained in France at Choisy and Versailles and had visited England in pursuit of the latest horticultural and pomological techniques. With the enthusiastic patronage of the Prince Bishop, Mayer was well on his way to transforming the palace gardens and had undertaken a wide-ranging programme of botanical research when his patron died in 1779. Funds were no longer available to Mayer, either for the publication of the Pomona, or for the development of the garden which subsequently suffered during the French occupation of 1796, and when the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg was secularized and absorbed into the Kingdom of Bavaria. The genesis for the present work seems to have been the desire of both Mayer and his patron to record the extensive and varied collection of fruit trees grown in the garden at Würzburg, but, in his successful efforts to produce a pomona that would rival the great pomonas of England and France, Mayer extended the work to include examples from all the great gardens of Franconia and to include a systematic treatise on fruit trees. Great care was taken over the plates, Mayer wrote that he wanted to get beyond illustration and produce the illusion of real fruit standing on the page. The printing of the plates was approached with equally high ideals and appropriately coloured inks were employed for various fruits: e.g. the plates of peaches were printed using orange ink. As with the palace gardens, the publication of the Pomona was disastrously affected by the death of the Prince Bishop in 1779, and it wasn't until twenty-one years later that the final volume was published. It is interesting to note that the original drawings and master proofs for this work resurfaced and were sold for over $500,000 at Christie's in London on 22nd March 2000.

Bradley Bibliography III, p.70; Bunyard 'A Guide to the Literature of Pomology' in the R.H.S. Journal, 1915, p. 423; Dunthorne 202; Nissen BBI 1318; Pritzel 6017; Raphael Oak Spring Pomona 51; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 5748.

Item #42447

Price: $7,500.00