First edition of a splendid Dutch flower book with 54 vividly hand-coloured plates of flowers, which have been very well preserved. The work clearly demonstrates the superiority of Dutch horticulture at the time. According to Hunt, the plates "effectively illustrate both the beginning of tulip culture and the period when the cultivars of the double hyacinth are said to have numbered one thousand. ... The three double hyacinths of plates 1-3 were no doubt recent varieties, for they do not occur in Saint-Simon's list of 1767." Other than tulips and hyacinths, the plates also depict roses, auriculas, lilies, crocuses, and many others. The plates are accompanied by detailed botanical descriptions, with notes on classification, breeding and distribution.
The work was originally published in nine instalments, which were issued to subscribers. The present copy is complete. It's author or authors are unknown; the title-page only mentions a "company of scholars". However, the engraving on the title-page is signed, namely by flower painter Paul Theodor van Brussel (1754-1795) and engraver Hendrik Leffert Myling (1757-1821). The delightful plates, nearly all with butterflies, caterpillars, beetles or insects are partly copies of the plates from Variae ac multiformes florum species (1665) by flower painter Nicolas Robert. The present work is not a Dutch edition of Robert's work, however, as the latter has no text.
The present copy contains an official parchment document from 1773, which has been loosely inserted. The document details the sale of a portion of land in the village of Stompwijk, near Leiden, the Netherlands. The meeting took place in the presence of Teunis Visser and Dirck van Leeuwen, schepenen (municipal executives) of the Banne of Stompwijk. Although the archives of Stompwijk have been transferred to the city archives of Leidschendam and Leiden, the present document apparently was not a part of it. It is possible that the first owner of the present work was one of the men involved in this sale.
With an official parchment document from 1773 ("Opdragtbrief ten behoeuen van Van Johannes Langelaen, indato den 20e December 1773") and a Dutch fine from 1963 inserted in the front of the work. The edges and corners of the boards are scuffed and the paper on the sides is somewhat rubbed. Plate 48 and 49 are bound in the wrong order. Otherwise in very good condition. Dunthorne 215; Hunt 733; Landwehr, Coloured plates, 29; Lindley, p. 323; Nissen, BBI, 2219; STCN 260360899 (9 copies); Sitwell, GFB, p. 70.