Illustrationes Florae novae hollandiae

Extremely rare botanical drawings of australia with fine provenance. One of six scientists chosen by Sir Joseph Banks to accompany Matthew Flinders on his circumnavigation of Australia, Ferdinand Lucas Bauer (1760-1826) was an Austrian botanical illustrator. Working under the direction of the botanist Robert Brown, Bauer recorded not only botanical but also zoological specimens, impressing Flinders with his work, writing that his and Brown's 'application is beyond what I have been accustomed to see'.

Returning to England in October 1805, Bauer was given permission to publish an account of his travels by the Admiralty, and spent five years working on Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae, doing all the engraving himself, whilst also contributing ten plates to Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis. Fifty sets of the Illustrationes... were published in three parts between 1806 and 1813, however as a publishing venture it was a failure and in 1814 Bauer returned to Vienna.

First (only) edition, one of 50 copies; folio (472 x 312mm approx.); vii, [1](blank)pp.; 15 fine engraved plates (uncoloured); contemporary decorative marbled boards with red morocco label to spine, upper section of upper joint cracked but firm, otherwise a superb copy, contained within a modern buckram clam-shell box, this with morocco label to spine.

Ferguson 549 (noting 5 copies; 2 colored); Great Flower Books, p.49; Nissen BBI, 96.