Shells - Martini Nurnberg ca: 1769, Fine Hand Coloring
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Neues systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet. MARTINI, F.H. & CHEMNITZ, J.H Nürnberg, G.N. Raspe, 1769-1829. 12 volumes. 4to. With 1 handcoloured engraved frontispiece, 1 portrait and 432 fine handcoloured engraved plates, numerous engravings in the text of which some handcoloured. A rare complete set of the most beautifully produced German iconography on shells, portraying marine shells from all over the world including shells from Cook's voyage into the Pacific. "Friederich Wilhelm Martini, a Hamburg physician, conceived the idea of publishing the first large-scale encyclopaedia of shells illustrated with hand-coloured plates. His ambition was to describe and portray every kind of shell known, an ambition virtually impossible to fulfil, as others have discovered since. No sooner was the third volume of the 'Neues Systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet' in print that its author died, in 1778. Publication was continued by Johann Hieronymus Chemnitz, a Danish clergyman who, between 1779 and 1795, added a further eight volumes" (Dance, Shells p. 24). The portrayed shells come from famous 'wunderkammer' collections of Kings and nobility, as well as wealthy merchants, such as the museum of Lorenz Spengler, cabinet maker of the King of Denmark; the museum of the King of Denmark, King Frederic V, an avid shell collector; the museum of Count A.G.
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