Delineations of Exotick Plants cultivated in the Royal Garden at Kew. Drawn and coloured, and the botanical characters displayed according to the Linnean system, by Francis Bauer...

Published by W.T. Aiton. London, William Bulmer, 1796-1803. 3 vols, large folio, pp [iv]; [iv] [ii], with 30 hand-coloured etched plates; first title remargined, one plate mounted on matching paper, some occasional marginal spotting, generally a very fresh copy, in its original binding of blue paper over pasteboards, with printed paper labels on upper covers, worn and with some repairs, in a fine half-morocco box by James Brockman.

First edition, with the especially rare third part, of Bauer’s stunning depictions of Ericas grown at Kew from specimens collected by Francis Masson in the Cape Colony. The unsigned preface by Sir Joseph Banks, the only text in the work, speaks of Bauer’s extraordinary skill: ‘It will appear singular, at first sight, that engravings of plants should be published without the addition of botanical descriptions of their generic and specific characters; but it is hoped, that every Botanist will agree, when he has examined the plates with attention, that it would have been an useless task to have compiled, and a superfluous expense to have printed, any kind of explanation concerning them; each figure is intended to answer itself every question a Botanist can wish to ask, respecting the structure of the plant it represents; the situation of the leaves and flowers are carefully imitated, and the shape of each is given in a magnified, as well as in a natural size. The internal structure of the flower, respecting the shape and comparative size of its component parts, is also, in all cases, carefully displayed…’ The reader is referred to the Hortus Kewensis for details of synonymy and specific differentiae.
According to a note by Sir Everard Home in the Natural History Museum copy, from information supplied to him by Bauer, 90 copies of the first number were printed, but ten of them were spoiled in colouring & hot pressing, of the second there were 80… of the third there were only 50…
Blunt considers Bauer to have been the greatest botanical artist of all time and notes that only in the present work can we appreciate the force of his draughtsmanship.

Dunthorne 28; Great Flower Books p 49; Henrey 437; Hunt 747; Nissen BBI 97; Stafleu and Cowan 363