Knorr Shows Sea Shells By The Sea Shore

By Stephen J. Gertz

In Nuremberg, 1757 through 1772, Georg Wolfgang Knorr (1705-1761), an engraver of great skill who, through self-study, learned a great deal about art and the natural sciences, published Vergnügen der Augen und des Gemüths, in Vorstellung einer allgemeinen Sammlung von Muscheln und andern Geschöpfen welche im Meer gefunden werden (Pleasure of the Eyes and Mind in a General Collection of Shells and Other Creatures Which Are Found in the Sea).

In six parts containing 190 hand-colored copperplate engravings of great beauty the book was an artistic triumph if not one of science; Knorr's casual approach ignored scientific order. The book was a simple - albeit magnificent - record of sea shells found in collections in Holland and Germany, including that of Martin Houttuyn, a doctor in Amsterdam whose collection contained many rare species.

It was soon issued in a French translation, Delices des yeux et de l'esprit... (1760-1773) and, later, an edition in Dutch by the heirs of Houttuyn as Verlustiging der oogen en van den geest... (1770-1775), a copy of which has recently come into the marketplace offered by Shapero Rare Books of London.

Nuremberg was, at the time, the European center for finely illustrated natural history books, led by J. Trew, a wealthy Nuremberg physician who organized and encouraged a salon of artists and scientists, including Knorr who earned his first major success with his illustrations to  Johannes Jacob Scheuzer's Physica Sacra (1731-1735) in which he depicted the solar system with the zodiac as the sphere of stars. Many of the shells that Knorr depicted in Vergnügen der Augen und des Gemüths... came from Trew's personal collection in addition to Martin Houttuyn's.

Whether in German, French, or Dutch, Knorr's book of shells became an enormous popular success. It will come as no surprise that copies were broken up and the stunning hand-colored plates - which often exceeded the beauty of the shells in nature - sold separately. There is no shortage of modern reproductions currently offered for sale.

Curiously, Knorr, whether in German, French or Dutch, neglects to illustrate one of the Muscheln closely associated with him, the Creamy Garlic Shell found strewn upon the shores of grocery store shelves throughout the Western world. We rectify that omission here:

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KNORR, Georg Wofgang. Verlustiging der oogen en van den geest: of verzameling van allerley bekende hoorens en schulpen, die in haar eigen kleuren afgebeeld zyn. Amsterdam: By de Erven van F. Houttuyn, 1770-1775. First edition in Dutch. Six parts in two quarto volumes (26.1 x 20.5 cm). Six letterpress titles and 190 hand-colored copperplate engravings by J.A. Joniger, J.A. Eisenmann, A. Hoffer and others after Knorr, C. Dietsch, J. Wartenaar, and others.

Landwehr 96. Nissen ZBI 2236. Cf. Dance, Shell Collecting, pp. 156-157.

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Images courtesy of Shapero Rare Books, with our thanks.

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The Other Horror Story Set In Transylvania

by Stephen J. Gertz

From: Nachricht von den nach Bontzhida in Siebenbürgen gekommenen Zugheuschrecken.

"Listen to them, the cicadas of the night. What music they make."

On August 23, 1780, a dense cloud of locusts the size of Transylvania (the cloud, not the locusts) descended upon Dracula's homeland to suck the sap out of everything that grew upon the earth and utterly destroy all crops.

The populace went into a panic. Driving a stake through the heart of each and every one of the monstrously hungry insects was impractical - not enough toothpicks in Transylvania; spraying garlic juice as an insecticide was malodorous in the extreme and without marinara sauce, why bother?; and daylight didn't put a dent in their activity.

What to do? 

According to Johann Roskoschnik, who, 1782,  chronicled the very real terror, the most effective method to rid Transylvania of the black-veined, green-blooded, night-flying Gryllus migratorius, apparently, was for farmers to dig broad holes deep enough to prevent the bugs from leaping out. Groups of them (farmers, not locusts), armed with brooms, then encircled the soulless demon pests, drove them into the pits, and set the horde afire and on its way to Hell.

According to Horn & Schenkling's Index Litteraturae Entomologicae, this account was originally published in  Ungarische Magazin  2, (1782), pp. 389-399. I missed that issue. I suspect that you did, too.
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ROSKOSCHNIK, Johann. Nachricht von den nach Bontzhida in Siebenbürgen gekommenen Zugheuschrecken, ihrem Aufenthalte daselbst, und ihrer Ausrottung; nebst einigen die Naturgeschichte derselben betreffenden Bemerkungen. Pressburg: Anton Löwe, 1782. First separate edition. Octavo. 14, [2] pp. Folding engraved plate with grasshoppers. Blue paper wrappers.

Hagen II, p. 93; Horn & Schenkling 18487.

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Image courtesy of Asher Rare Books, with our thanks.

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The Beautifully Strange Insects of Maria Sibylla Merian

by Stephen J. Gertz

A copy of  Maria Sibylla Merian's Surinaamsche Insecten (The Insects of Surinam, Amsterdam 1730), "One of the best old scientific works, and one of the most magnificently illustrated books ever created" (Rucker), was offered at Ketterer Kunst Auktions in Hamburg, November 21, 2011. The fourth edition (third in Dutch), it sold for $51,840. On June 8, 2011, at Christie's, a copy of the first edition sold for $238,355 (incl. buyer's premium).

Originally written in Latin and published in Amsterdam in 1705 as Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, the city of Amsterdam had sponsored Merian to travel to Surinam along with her younger daughter, Dorothea Maria, in 1699. Before departing, she wrote:

"In Holland, I noted with much astonishment what beautiful animals came from the East and West Indies. I was blessed with having been able to look at both the expensive collection of Doctor Nicolaas Witsen, mayor of Amsterdam and director of the East Indies society, and that of Mr. Jonas Witsen, secretary of Amsterdam. Moreover I also saw the collections of Mr. Fredericus Ruysch, doctor of medicine and professor of anatomy and botany, Mr. Livinus Vincent, and many other people. In these collections I had found innumerable other insects, but finally if here their origin and their reproduction is unknown, it begs the question as to how they transform, starting from caterpillars and chrysalises and so on. All this has, at the same time, led me to undertake a long dreamed of journey to Surinam" (From the Foreword to Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium).

"Merian's artistic and scientific interests outgrew Amsterdam's supply of exotic plants and animals. In 1699, after selling most of her belongings, she set sail for the Dutch colony of Suriname with her younger daughter, Dorothea Maria. Maria Sibylla was 52, Dorothea Maria 21.

"The jungles of South America were teeming with live specimens, which Merian studied for her most important publication, The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname (known as The Insects of Suriname). Merian's experiences in the city of Paramaribo are expressed in her accounts of vibrant butterflies, voracious caterpillars and ants, exotic fruits and vegetables, menacing reptiles, and treacherous explorations into the jungle. Her observations about the local climate, the use of plants and animals, and the Dutch colonists' treatment of slaves provide some of the earliest accounts of life in Suriname" (Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science).

Merian worked in Surinam (later the French, Dutch and British Guianas) for two years, traveling around the colony and sketching local animals and plants. In 1701 malaria forced her to return to  the Netherlands.

"Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), [was] an early German naturalist who exemplified the diy approach to observation, documentation, and dissemination of new knowledge in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Individuals at this time sought to document the worlds that were slipping away as quickly as they were being 'discovered,' and the talented Maria Sibylla Merian was one of these self-taught scholars.

"The daughter of one printer and eventual wife of another, Maria grew up surrounded by the stimulating world of scholarship, and all her life worked to satisfy her own intellectual curiosities concerning the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths. The methods that she used - keeping caterpillars in boxes, feeding and watching each change, and documenting her observations in word and images–resulted in studies that were unique in the early field of natural history. Her illustrations of both plants and insect life were reproduced in fine engravings in the books that she wrote and printed. And as an older lady, she even traveled to Surinam in search of undiscovered species that she could collect, study, and write about" (Jessica Pigza, The Talented and Brave Ms. Merian).

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Merian, M[aria]. S[ibylla]. Over de voortteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaamsche insecten: waar in de Surinaamsche rupsen en wormen, met alle derzelver veranderingen, naar het leeven afgebeelt en beschreeven worden ... Amsterdam, J. F. Bernard 1730. Fourth edition, the third with Dutch text, of the great work on Surinam insects by Merian, edited by Bernard. Large folio. 51 pp with engraved title-vignette and seventy-two copperplate engravings by J. Mulder and J. P. Sluyter, all finely colored by a contemporary hand. Contemporary full calf with floral gilt spine, boards with gilt fillet, corner florets and floral vignette in center.

Nissen 1341. Rücker S. 46ff. Horn/Schenkling 14992.  Hunt 484.

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Images courtesy of Ketterer Kunst, with our thanks.
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Human Butterflies Aflutter at Christie's

by Stephen J. Gertz

In nature a repulsive caterpillar turns into a lovely butterfly.  But with humans it is the other way around:  a lovely butterfly turns into a repulsive caterpillar  - Anton Chekhov

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man  - Chuang Tzu

The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity  - George Carlin

On Thursday June 23, 2011, Christie's is offering a copy a one of the most stunning anthropomorphic works ever produced. Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Air, published in 1852 and illustrated by Amédée Varin, depicts humans as butterflies within natural settings.

"I saw a passenger sitting beside the road."

The butterflies are free - Charles Dickens (Bleak House).

Generally speaking, yes. But if you wish to net these particular lepidopteri you'll have to lay out a little nectar to attract them. Christie's is estimating the book to sell for $2,000 - $3000.

Its original cloth binding (see above) is as gorgeous as can be imagined.

"She swayed gently in the air."

Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Air was inspired by J.J. Grandville's Les Métamorphoses de Jour (Paris: 1828-29). Grandville (pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard), the great French caricaturist, created seventy-two images of various animals as humans in social situations, skillfully imparting human emotions to the animals' faces. It's a satire of human behavior. 

"Hopping and dancing was their most attractive occupation."

Varin (1818-1883), however, was not a satirist but a fantasist. From a dynasty of artists dating back to the seventeenth century, he began his career engraving fashion designs and religious images.

"Christmas Tree."

"The removal of Cypris."

The thirty-five hand-colored engraved plates Varin created for Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres de Peuples de l'Air are quite spectacular, delicately searing themselves into memory. Charming, lovely, enchanting and utterly delightful they endure as one of the most pleasing color-plate suites ever published, tout sweet. Popular when originally published, the images remain so and have been reproduced as posters, greeting cards, etc.

"Promenade of Teschou-Lama."

"The Lady of the Butterflies."

Antony Meray (1817-18??), who, in concert with Eugene Nus, wrote the accompanying text, was the author of, amongst other volumes, Bibliographie Des Chansons, Fabliaux, Contes En Vers Et En Prose (1859); Les libres prêcheurs devanciers de Luther et de Rabelais: étude historique, critique et anecdotique sur les XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles (1860); and La Vie Au Temps Des Cours D'Amour: Croyances, Usages Et Moeurs Intimes Des XIE, Xiie, Xiiie Siecles (1873).

Faster, faster, my sister, Goul-Gou-li, cried.

"Fleur de vanilla receives a farewell from her fiancé."

In a glaring omission Varin left out the most renowned human butterfly, now a cultural icon, forgivable only because this species had yet to be identified at the time the artist created Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air.

Papillon McQueen, wings clipped.

...And his sister, Butterfly McQueen.
"I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' butterflies."

The year before Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air was published, Varin produced L'Empire des Légumes (1851), aka Drôleries végétales, his initial anthropomorphic collaboration with Meray and Nus. Let's hear it for whimsical veggies with a sense of humor. (An artichoke  heart, a roasted red pepper, and a grilled asparagus spear walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "Whad'ya think this is, a restaurant? We don't serve antipasti. Scram!").

A vinegar and oil shampoo.
Extra-green virgin - the oil, not the veggies.
From L'Empire des Légumes.

The Empire of the Vegetables is not to be confused with The Empire of the Ants (1977), a radioactive B-movie, very loosely based upon the H.G. Wells story (1905), in which wooden actors portray vapid humans with vegetarian results, to wit, as turnips, no picnic for the actors, the humans, the ants, and, especially, the viewers.

"I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords."
- Joan Collins as Marilyn Fryser.
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A traitorous sentiment from the comely Ms. Collins as Marilyn Fryser, a real estate developer with well-developed real estate, and short-sighted; just wait until the sex-bomb is seduced by a giant bedbug.

But if the insects are butterflies, no tyranny in the boudoir expected; blue skies shall reign. Yet sunshine, lollipops, polka-dots, and moonbeams will only last so long. Power corrupts, and even the meek butterfly can get all puffed up by world domination. 

I remember Mothra.

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MERAY,  Antony and NUS, Eugene; VARIN, Amédée (illustrator). Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air. Paris: Gabriel de Gonet, n.d. [1852]. First edition. Two large octavo volumes (262 x 172 mm). 238; 258, [4, as contents and index] pp. Thirty-five hand-colored engraved plates, including frontispieces. Original blue cloth, pictorially stamped upper board, gilt butterfly to lower board, spine pictorially stamped.

Carteret III, 492.  Vicaire VI, 246.

N.B.: Some websites incorrectly state the date of publication as 1862.

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Images from Les Papillons Métamorphoses Terrestres des Peuples de l'Air courtesy of Christie's, with our thanks.
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Of related interest: Early American Butterflies Alight in South Carolina.
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Early American Butterflies Alight In South Carolina

by Nancy Mattoon

Watercolor Painting By John Abbot, c.1813.
Latin name: Papilio polyxenes (Fabricius)
English: Black Swallowtail

(All Images Courtesy of Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina.)

The Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina has digitized one of the earliest collections of original watercolor illustrations depicting the butterflies and moths of North America. The Abbot Watercolors Collection consists of 149 paintings of butterflies and moths, mounted and matted, and housed in six blue half morocco cases with gilt-lettered backs. The paintings were created by pioneering artist and naturalist, John Abbot (1751-1840), between 1813 and 1828.

Latin name: Danaus plexippus
English: Monarch

The London-born Abbot was one of the earliest Europeans to record the natural history of North America. Abbot was the son of a noted British barrister, and was expected to follow in his father's footsteps by taking up the law. But, as a boy, he developed a fascination with the animal kingdom, and showed an extraordinary artistic talent. Recognizing that his son had no interest in becoming a lawyer, Abbot's father hired French painter and engraver Jacob Bonneau to teach the boy the fundamentals of book illustration.

Latin name: Eumorpha pandorus
English: Pandorus Sphinx

Abbot's interest in natural history led to friendships with noted London ornithologists and entomologists. He began to collect insect and bird specimens, and made a modest living by selling paintings of them on commission. By 1770 he had earned enough respect to have two of his illustrations of Lepidoptera accepted for display in the London Society of Artists yearly exhibition. Around this same time, Abbot began to express an interest in traveling to North America to document the avian and butterfly species found in the New World.

Latin name: Hypercompe scribonia
English: Great Leopard Moth

John Abbot was fortunate to find a wealthy and influential mentor in London jeweler Dru Drury (1725-1803), an avid insect fancier, who ultimately accumulated one of the most comprehensive private collections of entomological specimens in the world. Drury not only purchased specimens collected overseas, but also funded expeditions throughout the world, with the express purpose of finding new species for his collection. The publication of Mark Catesby's Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands (1731-1743), the first printed account of the flora and fauna of North America, inspired Drury to send Abbot on a collecting trip to Virginia in 1773. Before leaving London, Abbot formed another business partnership with London jeweler John Francillon (1744-1816), who would act as his agent and sell his paintings to naturalists other than Drury.

Latin name: Hyalophora cecropia
English: Cecropia Silkmoth

Arriving in Virginia in the Fall of 1773, Abbot soon found that the chaos of the Revolutionary War made pursuing his work impossible. He relocated to Georgia within two years, where he remained until his death in 1840. His production of illustrations in the New World was amazingly prolific. He created over two thousand paintings for Francillon alone, many of which are now housed in The Natural History Museum of London. In 1797 Abbot’s drawings were published in The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia by Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828). The two-volume work, one of the earliest butterfly guides to North America, included one hundred and four hand-colored engravings of Abbot’s paintings, along with Abbot’s notes and observations, written in both French and English.

Latin name: Eacles imperialis
English: Imperial Moth

The paintings in the collection of the Thomas Cooper Library were commissioned by American naturalist John Eatton Le Conte in 1813. Le Conte took the completed illustrations to Paris in 1828, where he began work with Jean Alphonse Boisduval on Histoire générale et iconographie des lépidoptères et des chenilles de l'Amerique septentrionale. Le Conte and Boisduval used some of the Abbot watercolors for the 1833 edition of this work.

Latin name: Citheronia regalis (Fabricius)
English: Royal Walnut Moth

According to the Thomas Cooper Library website, "Boisduval apparently gave the drawings to French lepidopterist Louis M.A. Depuiset (.pdf), who in turn gave them to Charles M. Oberthür, a former student of Boisduval. Four years after the death of Oberthür in 1924, a rare book dealer named La Chavalier purchased Oberthür’s library. The drawings were owned privately for the next thirty-nine years, and the identity of the owner(s) is not known." In November of 1963, Sotheby’s and Company of London sold the watercolors, listed only as 'property of a lady,' to the rare book firm H.P. Kraus of New York City. The University of South Carolina purchased the illustrations from H.P. Kraus in 1964 for the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

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The 19th C. British Hunter Who Just Said No to Hunting

by Stephen J. Gertz

One day in 1741, British naturalist and litterateur Gilbert White (1720-1793) had a revelation. An outdoorsman since childhood, he had spent his school years exploring southern and central England and, in hunting, found a sense of the natural world as an encounter filled  with mystery and beauty. But this day was different.

"...During the routine of ‘field-diversions’ White experienced an event that was to shape his future and eventually lead to the single work for which he is so well known, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789).

"The occasion can be dated precisely to 21 September 1741: up early, and out hunting for partridge, White ‘found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with [such] a thick coat of cobweb’ that his dogs were ‘so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed’; and further, the ‘perfect flakes or rags’ (of gossamer—for that is what White describes in Selborne, Barrington, letter 23) ‘hung in the trees and hedges so thick, that a diligent person … might have gathered baskets full.' The immediate outcome of this singular experience was a forced return home, during which he mused on ‘the oddness of the occurrence.'

"But a deeper magic was at work and White's devotion to hunting received a considerable shock. Gratuitous killing (even for sport), he came to realize, was alien to the purposes of Providence, and although he continued to shoot for the table and, later, to provide specimens for identification and dissection, the thrill of the chase and the deceit of the stalk were to be replaced in his maturity by a spirit of enquiry and the outcomes of scientific curiosity..." (Oxford DNB).

For the following forty years until his death in 1793 White kept a near-daily diary of his gardening activities, garden produce, culinary satisfaction, and of natural phenomena he encountered. With the help of his nephew Benjamin White, proprietor of London shop purveying natural history books, he published his life's work, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, a compilation of forty-four of his letters to Thomas Pennant, the leading British zoologist of the day, and sixty-six letters to the Hon. Daines Barrington, an English barrister and another Fellow of the Royal Society, on November 1, 1788 (but dated 1789; under contemporary British law volumes available in the final months of the year were permitted to carry the date of the following year).

With this, his major work, published, White was elevated to fame. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, enthusiastically reviewed in the Gentleman's Magazine and in The Topographer, brought White well-deserved acclaim. His greatest achievements  were, arguably, the examples he set for his contemporaries and to posterity as a predator of nature's fauna transformed to its protector and thus redeemed in the eyes of God and Creation, and as a proto-ecologist: Hunting, for anything other than providing food for the dining table, is immoral, and all plants and animals in a prescribed area form an environmental community within which each is dependent upon the other for survival.

The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne has been continuously in print for 222 years since its initial publication, with 300 editions issued through 2007.
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WHITE, Gilbert.  The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, in the County of Southampton: With Engravings, and an Appendix. London: Printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son, 1789.

First edition, complete with errata leaf. Quarto. (9 7/8 x 7 1/2 in; 253 x 190 mm). v, [1], 468, [12, Index], [1, errata], [1, blank] pp. Page 292 misnumbered 262, and pages 441-442 omitted from pagination. Folding engraved frontispiece, engraved title vignette, and six engraved plates (one folding).

Martin 90. Rothschild 2550. Grolier English 62 .

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

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Gender-Bending Chickens and the Bookbirder Report

Grrl Scientist at rest.

GrrlScientist is the pseudonym of a colorful parrot who writes by typing with her beak. A science/nature/bird blogger in flight, at roost she's an evolutionary biologist//ornithologist and freelance science and nature writer from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Her Ph.D. is in ornithology, and she spent her two-year postdoc reconstructing the molecular phylogeny of parrots of the South Pacific Islands; somebody had to. Devorah Bennu is strictly for the birds. Based upon her profile pic, she appears to be a Yellow-Bibbed Lory (Lorius chlorocerus).

As such, she writes with a brush-tongue full of nectar. I used to keep a Yellow-backed Lory. The little pisher (oh, yes, they squirt) fearlessly attacked my scarlet macaw. The macaw bit off one of the lory's toes; the little squirt still kept fighting. Lories make a sort of weird, BOING!-like vocalization. Grrl Scientist appears to be fearless and makes interesting vocal-sounds in print.

One of her blogs is Maniraptora: Tastes Like Chicken. The most recent egg in her basket is about gender-bending chickens and the evolution of sex discrimination. Don’t ask, just read.

A bilateral gynandromorph: The right side has female
characteristics and left side has male characteristics.
In the rare book trade this is known as a dos-a-dos binding.

Her other blogspot is Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted). Based upon birding legend Edgar Kincaid’s aphoristic Q&A, How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird literature, she posts the Bookbirder Report, “a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase.”

Interesting new volumes on birds, small mammals, and tigers are featured in this week’s report, which is actually put together by Ian “Bookbirder” Paulson, who has his own site, The Bookbirder’s Bookcase. a guide to new and upcoming books on birds and natural history.

If books on birds, mammals, nature, science, biology - and, of course, news about gender-bending chickens - are as irresistible to you as they are to me, then these are excellent spots to catch-up on the latest in books on birds, and bird news. You never know what Grrl Scientist will hatch next, and the droppings of "Bookbirder" Paulson are not to be missed.

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A Yellow-naped Amazon parrot, not Albert -
who prefers that his picture not be in the papers,
which he considers strictly for deposit only.

Today's post was written by guest columnist, Albert, a thirty-one year old Yellow-naped Amazon parrot who, when not engaging in self-stimulation on my shoulder, enjoys walking on a computer keyboard and astounding me with coherent prose - SJG. 

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