(Botany) - WEINMANN, Johann Wilhelm Duidelyke vertoning, eeniger duizend in alle vier waerelds deelen wassende bomen, stammen, kruiden, bloemen, vrugten, en uitwassen, &c. [...] Nevens een register in meest alle taalen, van de naamen der kruiden [...]. Amsterdam, Zacharias Romberg, 1736-1748 8 vol. (4 of text, 4 of plates), folio: [90]-32-280 pp., [2] pp., pl. 1/275.- [2]-538 pp., [2] pp., pl. 276/525. - [2]-500 pp., [2] pp.- pl. 526/775. - [2]-619 pp., [2] pp.-pl. 776/1025 (a few pl. sl. browned, some sm. and faint water stains on upper margins in 4th plate-vol., in all very good condition of the pl.). Contemp. brown mottled calf, gilt orn. spines with 6 raised bands, red leather title labels (corners bumped and rubbed, joints rubbed, sm. def. at heads and tails). Overall good condition. First and only Dutch edition of the florilegium "Phytanthoza iconographia" (first Latin 1737-1745) by the German apothecary and botanist from Regensburg J.W. Weinmann (1683-1741). Extremely valuable record of the plant kingdom as it was understood in the mid-eighteenth century and the outcome of a very ambitious project which resulted in eight folio volumes with more than 1000 hand-coloured engravings of several thousand plants. Complete with 1025 plates including both colour-printed mezzotints with added hand-colouring, and hand-coloured copper-engravings showing algae, bulbs, flowering plants, vegetables, fruits, shrubs, and trees (14 are double-page and 2 folding); a mezzotint allegorical frontispiece of Ceres with attendants by J.J. Haid after Baumgartner and two mezzotint portraits of Weimann and Bieler by Haid after M.C. Hirschman; and a half-page engraving above the dedicatory. Subscribers' list in volume I. All titles in red and black and with engr. vignettes on each. The text volumes are titled: "Taalryk register der plaat-ofte figuur-beschryvingen der bloemdragende gewassen [...]". The work is most famous for its spectacular and ground-breaking newly developed printing process using coloured mezzotint, which allowed greater detail and shading, and was finished off by hand-colouring. Weinmann employed the young Georg Dionysius Ehret as illustrator. His very distinctive style is shown throughout the work but mostly in the various potted aloes and cacti. It became his first published work and he contributed several hundred drawings for which he received miserly payment. This led to a dispute between the two which is perhaps why Ehret is nowhere acknowledged in the book. Ehret was replaced by N. Asamin, a talented young woman. The massive publishing project was financed by Bartholomaus Seuter, one of the engravers, who was helped by Johann Ridinger, and in the later volumes by Johann Jakob Haid. The texts were written by J.G.N. Dieterichs, succeeded by his son Ludwig Michael and completed after Weinmann's death by Ambrosius Karl Bieler. Ref. STCN. - Stafleu & Cowan 17.050. - Nissen (BBI) 2126. - Pritzel 10140. - Cp. Sitwell, p. 151 (Latin ed. only).