Victoria Regia, or illustrations of the Royal Water-Lily, in a series of figures chiefly made from specimens flowering at Syon and at Kew.
Eur 30,000 / USD 33,000
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London, Reeve and Benham, 1851. Broadsheet folio (747 x 545 mm). Complete with 4 very fine hand-coloured lithograph; 11 letterpress leaves, 4 blank leaves: title-page, dedication leaf, collation: pp. (v), 6-20, (4 blank sheets acting as guards for the plates), (ii, Explanation of Plates and Printer's mark on verso). Modern half blue morocco, with a blue morocco gilt-label on upper cover.
First edition of this spectacular celebration of the flowering of the giant tropical water-lily, Victoria amazonica
First edition of this spectacular celebration of the flowering of the giant tropical water-lily, Victoria amazonica, with four stunning plates by Walter Fitch. The book's dimensions were dictated by the desire to depict the lily as near as possible to life-size (reminiscent of Bateman?s 'Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala'). The plates are perhaps the largest botanical images, along with Bateman, published in nineteenth-century England.
'One of the most celebrated plants from this period was the water-lily Victoria amazonica, originally called the Victoria regia by Lindley in honour of England?s reigning monarch. Discovered at the beginning of the century by European explorers, it created a veritable sensation in England when the eclectic and versatile Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) managed to coax the plant to flower [in 1849] while working at Chatsworth and Chiswick as head gardener for the Duke of Devonshire' (Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, 'An Oak Spring Flora' p. 378). Joseph Paxton claimed to have taken his inspiration for the construction of Crystal Palace from the structure of the giant water-lily, his rib and furrow system being modelled on the veining of the leaf.
The text presents the history of the discovery of the lily in the Amazon basin, its transport to England, and numerous attempts to get it to flower. This is followed by an essay on its taxonomy, and then on its botanical structure. The final plate of the work is devoted to the anatomy of the plant and its flower.
The work is dedicated to the Duchess of Northumberland, who also brought the lily to flower in the hothouses of Syon House, where Fitch made drawings of the plant for the present work.
Provenance: Massachusetts Horticultural Society (bookplate recording the gift of Georg W. Smith, 1852, and one other bookplate).
Great flower books p. 103; Nissen BBI 919; Stafleu and Cowan 3014 (noting 20 pages letterpress, and not noting p. (21): Reference to the Plates).