= Nissen (Die botanische Buchillustration) 931. Landwehr (Studies in Dutch Books with Coloured Plates) 80. Very rare second edition of a beautiful illustrated work on the flora of Java by the Dutch female botanical artist Berthe Hoola van Nooten-Van Dolder (1817-1892) comprising 40 large-sized chromolithographs (depicting various flowers and plants of Indonesia) by the Belgian lithographer Guillaume Severeyns (born around 1830). The first edition was published in 1863 (with 1 col. lithograph extra (no. 41: “Phyllium pulcherrifolium”) according to Landwehr), the third and final edition was published in 1880 (with 40 col. lithographs). “Van Nooten was clearly a more than competent artist, for the splendid tropical plants, with their lush foliage, vividly coloured flowers and exotic fruit, have been depicted with great skill. She managed to accentuate the splendour of each species by adopting a style that combined great precision and clarity with a touch of neo-Baroque exuberance, reveling in the rich forms and colours of the tropics. The reader's eye is immediately captured by the dark leaves, shown furled or crumpled or partly nibbled away by insects, the delicately rendered details of the follicles and seeds, and the heavy clusters of flowers that cascade down the page. The excellent reproduction of the artist's drawings in the form of chromolithographs lends a tactile quality to these striking images” (L.T. Tomasi, “An Oak Spring Flora”, 1997).
Imperfect, yet complete copy of this legendary botanical work. With defects (covers worn/ rubbed; partly foxed/ browned (due to the quality of the paper and/or off-setting from the col. lithographs); inner blank margin of most plates and text-leaves partly strengthened with tape, upper blank corner of 1 plate (no. 4) strengthened with paper, outer blank margin of 3 text-leaves (belonging to plate no. 11, 17 and 21) strengthened with acid-free paper; small tear in lower blank corner of 1 plate (no. 27) strengthened with acid-free paper; large tear in 2 text-leaves (belonging to plate no. 31 and 36, both repaired with paper on verso), occ. sl. finger-soiled, 7 final plates (no. 34-40 & their text-leaves) partly waterstained/ moulded in the centre - worsening towards the end). All in all in acceptable interior condition with all colouired lithographs printed in striking bright colours.