| Antoinette Paulette Jacqueline Knip — Les Pigeons |
 |
Les Pigeons |
|
Folio (21 13/8 x 14 inches). Half-title. 87 plates by Caesar Macet after Madame Knip, printed in colors by Millevoy and finished by hand (intermittent and occasioanly heavy spotting throughout). Contemporary french half red morocco scarlet paper boards, gitl (hinges strengthened). Provenance: early pencilled captions to plates; with the ink stamp of the library of the North Devon Athenaeum on the verso of the front free endpaper and in the lower margins of two text leaves. First edition, originally published in parts, or livraisons. A student of the celebrated ornithological artist Jacques Barraband, and a protégée of Marie-Louise Bonaparte, Knip's work on the Pigeon is probably the most famous and superbly illustrated work on the bird. The work caused something of a flurry during its publication: fifteen livraisons had been planned with text by the celebrated naturalist Conrad Temminck under the title "Histoire naturelle generale des pigeons" before Madame Knip usurped Temminck at the ninth livraison, altering the title and crediting herself as the sole author. The resulting textual anomalies which Knip dismissed as a merely the "faute d'impression," impelled Temminck to republish the text in three volumes between 1813-1815. A second volume was published with text by Florent Prevost between 1838-1843, at which time the first volume was reissued. Ayer/Zimmer 356; Copenhagen/Anker 261; Fine Bird Books 86; Nissen, IVB 511; Ronsil 2890. For controversy see E. Coues in Bull. U. S. Geol. Geogr. Survey Territories, 5 (1878), pp. 794-796. |
|
|
|
