1748,CATESBY SELIGMANN ED. H/C FOLIO ARDEA AMERICANA CN

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Title Sammlung verschiedener auslandischer und seltener Vogel Author /Artist Seligmann/Mark Catesby. Date 1749 Sizes 9" 5 /8 x 15" 7/8 (24,5 x 40,5 cm) Descri ption Numbered stipple engraving. Beautiful original hand coloring. Names in Latin and French. Other plates Other Plates . "Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and Bahama Islands" By Mark Catesby Seligmann Edition (Sammlung verschiedener auslandischer und seltener Vogel) Biography of the Artist. Mark Catesby (24 March 1682 - December 1749). B orn in Essex in 1682, Catesby studied natural history in London and was t rained as a botanist before going to stay in 1712 with his sister, Elizabeth Catesby Cocke, in Williamsburg, Virginia to engage in study of Natural History of the New World. He remained t for seven years, sending back to England - to Thomas Fairchild a nurseryman in London- a collections of plants and seeds. This made his name known to other scientists and, after the death of is father, six years later, he returned to England. In England he became famous among scientists and was induced by Dr. Sherard and others to undertake another voyage to America, for the express purpose of collecting and describing its natural productions. Catesby returned to America in 1722 to seek specimens (which went to Sir Hans Sloane) for his Natural History; he travelled extensively in Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and the Bahamas, sending back further specimens. The fruit of his voyage was this " Natural History of Carolina. " “It does great honor to him and his native country, and is perhaps the most curious and elegant performance of its kind that has anyw appeared in Europe.” His preface provides a lengthy account of the development of this work, including his decision to study with Joseph Goupy in order to learn to etch his plates himself to ensure accuracy and economy. "He was the first in a long line of ornithologists to teach himself to translate his drawings into a medium that produced multiple copies. As his was the earliest published natural history of a part of the New World, he has been called 'the father of American ornithology' " ( Jackson, Bird Etchings, p.87 ). Catesby also "made a valuable and important contribution to ornithological illustration. He was confident enough to break new ground--to portray his birds more naturally than before, with foliage backgrounds, and to adopt the folio format. He depicted the natural history in one area in its entirety, and often drew from living models" ( Jackson ). Upon his return to London, he began preparing his book, and as he could not afford artists, he drew and engraved the plates himself, with the exception of three by Ehret (two of which are magnolias). Catesby also makes clear that he considered his illustrations, rather than his equally significant field observations, to be his most important achievement: "The Illuminating [of] Natural History is so particularly Essential to the perfect understanding of it, that I may aver a clearer Idea may be conceiv'd from the Figures of Animals and Plants in their proper Colours, than from the most exact Description without them: Wfore I have been less prolix in the Discription, judging it unnecessary to tire the Reader with describing every Feather, yet I hope sufficient to distinguish them without Confusion" (preface). Catesby's Natural History was an immediate sensation; in a contemporary review in Philosophical Transactions, Cromwell Mortimer, secretary of the Royal Society, called it "the most magnificent work I know since the Art of printing has been discovered." Unusually for a work of this size and expense, two further eighteenth-century editions were called for, and Catesby's illustrations were pirated and copied across Eur... read more

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