BONAPARTE, C.L.

Iconographie des Pigeons non figurés par Mme Knip dans les deux volumes de MM. Temminck et Florent Prévost.

Eur 8,000 / USD 8,800
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Paris, P. Bertrand, 1857-1858. Large-folio (560 x 370mm). With 55 beautifully handcoloured lithographed plates by Lemercier after drawings by P.L. Oudard, F. Willy and E. Blanchard. Original printed wrapper (slightly torn), preserved in a recent blue cloth box.

The handcoloured bird portraits are extremely fine

All published of this fine work, which was intended as a supplement to "Les Pigeons", by Knip, Temminck and Prévost. The original plan for this work embraced 30 issues with 150 plates. The author died however after the 4th issue and Moquin-Tandon brought out 8 more. "The handcoloured bird portraits are extremely fine" (Wood). Charles Lucien Bonaparte was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. Despite his family connections and the disruptions that followed the Napoleonic era, he became a competent and highly respected naturalist. "The prince himself (C.L. Bonaparte) stayed only a short time in America and returned to Europe for good in 1828, with his wife and young son, choosing Rome for his permanent residence. There he actively pursued his beloved taxonomic studies and research, which extended more and more to birds of the whole world and, by 1831, had made him so famous among ornithologists that Swainson could write, "To Charles Lucia Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, not only the eyes of America, but Europe may be turned, as to one who seems destined by Nature to confer unperishable benefits on this noble science." (Stresemann pp. 157-8). Bonaparte was famous for his continuation of Wilson's 'American Ornithology' and his 3 volume work on the fauna of Italy. One text leaf with dampstaining at lower margin. Some occasional slight foxing to some of the plates. A copy with fine colouring of the plates.

Nissen IVB, 117; Fine Bird Books, p. 60; see also P.T. Stroud, The Emperor of Nature Charles Lucien Bonaparte and his world.