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Condizione: Very Good. 290, col + b/w illus, text figs. . HB. Vg. Text French. A remarkable collection of ichthyological illustrations produced by Isaac Johannes Lamotius (1646-1718), a Dutch colonial governor in Mauritius. Lamotius, a former intellectual and scholar, spent much of his governorship and later exile to the island of Rosengain in the Banda Islands, producing numerous scientific drawings of new flora and fauna, but his most extensive and revered illustrations were of the islands' fish. These drawings, reproduced here for the first time, are a remarkable collection of works, some of the earliest known depictions of the species, and are some of the finest scientific illustrations of the time. [9782856535929].

Hardcover. Dust Jacket Included. pp.x, 222 with b/w. illus. 8vo. Fine hardback in fine dw. A work of historical fiction told through the voice of Carl Linnaeus which explores the friendship between Carl Linnaeus and Peter Artedi, a fellow scientist who drowned in Amsterdam in 1735 under mysterious circumstances.

A founder of comparative anatomy and a giant of nineteenth-century biology, Georges Cuvier, and his student and colleague Achille Valenciennes, brought together all that was known about fishes in their massive 22-volume Histoire Naturelle des Poissons published from 1828 to 1849. Despite the passage of time, this work represents a landmark in the history of science, indispensable to systematic ichthyology and to comparative biology in general. As an introduction to this monumental work, the first volume traces the development of the study of fishes as then understood from the earliest beginnings to the first third of the nineteenth-century and summarizes the criteria for classification that their own work would follow. This critically important essay one of the first attempts at a comprehensive history of any major group of organisms now appears in English alongside the original French text, beautifully illustrated and accompanied by rich annotations and commentary, serving to bring this important text to our attention and highlighting its historical significance. Paris. Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. 670 pages, 219 color & b/w illustrations, 24 tables, swiss brochure gr. 8 [16.5 x 24 cm] [bilingual in English and French].

Here, for the first time in English, is Georges Cuvier's extraordinary History of the Natural Sciences from Its Origin to the Present Day. Based on a series of public lectures presented by Cuvier from 1829 to 1832, this fourth of a five-volume series, translated from the original French and heavily annotated with commentary, is a detailed chronological survey of the natural sciences in the eighteenth century. It is truly astonishing in its detail and scope. Cuvier was fluent in many languages, English, German, Spanish, and certainly Latin, in addition to French. He was therefore well prepared to investigate and interpret firsthand the scientific literature of Europe as a whole. The work is an affirmation of Cuvier's vast encyclopedic knowledge, his complete command of the scientific and historical literature, and his incomparable memory. This history is remarkable also for providing in one place a large set of useful references to a vast ancient literature that is not easily found anywhere else. This huge body of information provides us furthermore with unique insight into Cuvier's concept of the natural sciences, and to the vast breadth and progress of this human endeavor. With this work, Cuvier fills an important gap in philosophical thought between the time of Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin. Paris. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. 622 pp., 60 b/w illustrations, paperback gr. 8 [16.5 x 24.0 cm] [Bilingual English / French].

Here, for the first time in English, is Georges Cuvier's extraordinary "History of the Natural Sciences from Its Origin to the Present Day." Based on a series of public lectures presented by Cuvier from 1829 to 1832, this third of a five-volume series, translated from the original French and heavily annotated with commentary, is a detailed chronological survey of the natural sciences spanning roughly fifty years, from the close of the seventeenth century to approximately 1750. It is truly astonishing in its detail and scope. Cuvier was fluent in many languages, English, German, Spanish, and certainly Latin, in addition to French. He was therefore well prepared to investigate and interpret firsthand the scientific literature of Europe as a whole. The work is an affirmation of Cuvier's vast encyclopedic knowledge, his complete command of the scientific and historical literature, and his incomparable memory. This history is remarkable also for providing in one place a large set of useful references to a vast ancient literature that is not easily found anywhere else. This huge body of information provides us furthermore with unique insight into Cuvier's concept of the natural sciences, and to the vast breadth and progress of this human endeavor. With this work, Cuvier fills an important gap in philosophical thought between the time of Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin. Paris. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. 576 pp., 40 figs, br. gr. 8 [16.5 x 24.0 cm].

The archives of the world's libraries and museums are filled with little seen and under appreciated treasures, but few objects are as exquisite and unknown as the paintings of fishes and invertebrates made by Isaac Johannes Lamotius on the tiny Indian Ocean island of Mauritius and in the Moluccas in the late 17th century. Alone and isolated from a former intellectual life in Holland, and burdened with the nearly impossible task of governing a small but rather unruly band of Dutch colonists, Lamotius consoled himself by studying the then unknown flora and fauna of the island. During his governorship, and for some time afterward when he was exiled to the island of Rosengain in the Banda Archipelago, he devoted his spare time to drawing and painting aquatic animals, primarily marine fishes. Although he probably produced much more, all that has survived to the present day is a set of 250 colored drawings, the complete collection of which is reproduced here for the first time. Hidden in the recesses of the now Central Library of the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, the paintings shown here were brought to light by Georges Cuvier in the early 19th century but identified with Lamotius only in 1959, when one of the authors made a detailed comparative study of this work and several related sets of drawings that formed the basis of a number of 18th-century natural history publications. These images are vastly superior to any contemporary effort. For many species, the drawings represent the first human record of their existence; the scientific accuracy is such that nearly all can be readily identified with currently recognized species and are provided with collecting data. Together the drawings represent the earliest known description of the marine zoology of Mauritius and, for that matter, one of the earliest such studies of the fishes and marine invertebrates of any Indo-west Pacific locality. With scientific and historical comments, these images come to life after having been essentially lost from public view for more than three centuries. 290 pp., num. color figs, hc folio [bilingual French / English].

Never was a man so denied a place in history than Father Charles Plumier. Craftsman, illustrator, and engraver, but best known for his work as a botanist, Plumier devoted the better part of his life to collecting and illustrating plants and animals. Working nearly a century before the great eighteen-century describers of the untold number of new organisms flooding into Europe at the time, the major credit for Plumier's contributions to botany and zoology was given to others. Born at Marseille in 1646, Plumier was initially trained at the Convent of the Minims in mathematics and the physical sciences, but soon turned his attention to natural history, taking on the study of botany with great enthusiasm. He so impressed his superiors as a botanist, as well as through his extraordinary talents as an illustrator and engraver, that in 1689 he was appointed naturalist on an expedition to the French possessions in the Antilles for the purpose of collecting objects of natural history. The great success of this voyage, followed by two additional expeditions to the West Indies, provided a life-long pension, and earned him the title of "Botaniste du Roy." Often ill and always anxious about the publication of his work, Plumier spent the last years of his life in his cell at the Minim Convent La Place Royale in Paris compiling his notes and drawings and preparing manuscripts for the press. While on his way to Peru to discover the tree that produces quinine, he suffered a sudden attack of pleurisy and died on 20 November 1704 at the age of 58. Plumier's legacy survives in an enormous body of iconographic material still extant in the collections of the Bibliothèque Centrale du Museum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. While his botanical contributions have been described in some detail and many of his plant drawings have been published, his influence on zoology has been relatively unexplored and his animal drawings remain largely unpublished until now. This volume, the first of a series of monographs planned for the near future, designed to bring Plumier's extraordinary work to light, imparts life to images that have been essentially lost from public view for more than three centuries. 408 pp., 64 figs, 121 plates, hardcover folio [230 x 340 mm].