German School, early 17th century Borametz, or the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary ; Trifolium Producens ; Belvedere -- three original botanical drawings, pencil and watercolour, (417 x 290mm), German paper?, one sheet watermarked with a crozier and initial B, another with fleur-de-lis and initials WR similar to but not identical to several in Piccard, originating mainly in Strassburg at the very end of the 16th century or early 17th century, also similar to Heawood 1721-1721a, located at Schieland, c.1609-1614. Each drawing titled at top ( Boramez oder Tartarische Schaff Kraut ; Trifolium Producens Limages, vel Medica Anglica ; Belvedere ), apparently extracted from a botanical album, with early MS foliation (48, 55, 63). (Spotted and slightly stained, edges lightly frayed.) AN EARLY DEPICTION OF ONE OF THE LEGENDARY MARVELS OF THE NATURAL WORLD. The Borametz, or Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, also known as the Scythian Lamb, was reputed to be a plant which grew in Tartary and bore a living lamb as its fruit. Sir John Mandeville described it in the 14th century, and it attracted particular attention in the 16th and 17th centuries when men such as Herberstein, travelling to Russia in the mid-16th century, conceded the possibility of its existence owing to the numerous accounts he heard from trustworthy sources. Kaempfer too, travelling in Persia over a century later, sought out the fabulous zoophyte. Claude Duret devoted an entire chapter to the Vegetable Lamb and illustrated it in his Histoire Admirable des Plantes (1605), citing as an authority the Talmud (in fact, the Mishna Kilaim). It is depicted on the title-page of Parkinson's Paradisi in Sole (1656), and in De la Croix's Connubia Florum (1791). Even after Hans Sloane examined a specimen in 1698 and identified it as a portion of an arborescent fern, the myth persisted. H. Lee argues that the legend arose from classical descriptions of the cotton plant, introduced from India into western Asia; Herodotus describes a corselet ornamented with gold and 'fleeces from trees', and Theophrastus describes wool-bearing trees. The present drawing does not derive from the Mandeville/Parkinson/De la Croix images, but is closely related to an illustration in Johann Zahn's Physico-Mathematico-Historica (Nuremberg: 1696), which it almost certainly pre-dates. Cf. H. Lee, The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary , 1887; The Age of the Marvellous . (3)
German School, early 17th century Borametz, or the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary ; Trifolium Producens ; Belvedere -- three original botanical drawings, pencil and watercolour, (417 x 290mm), German paper?, one sheet watermarked with a crozier and initial B, another with fleur-de-lis and initials WR similar to but not identical to several in Piccard, originating mainly in Strassburg at the very end of the 16th century or early 17th century, also similar to Heawood 1721-1721a, located at Schieland, c.1609-1614. Each drawing titled at top ( Boramez oder Tartarische Schaff Kraut ; Trifolium Producens Limages, vel Medica Anglica ; Belvedere ), apparently extracted from a botanical album, with early MS foliation (48, 55, 63). (Spotted and slightly stained, edges lightly frayed.) AN EARLY DEPICTION OF ONE OF THE LEGENDARY MARVELS OF THE NATURAL WORLD. The Borametz, or Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, also known as the Scythian Lamb, was reputed to be a plant which grew in Tartary and bore a living lamb as its fruit. Sir John Mandeville described it in the 14th century, and it attracted particular attention in the 16th and 17th centuries when men such as Herberstein, travelling to Russia in the mid-16th century, conceded the possibility of its existence owing to the numerous accounts he heard from trustworthy sources. Kaempfer too, travelling in Persia over a century later, sought out the fabulous zoophyte. Claude Duret devoted an entire chapter to the Vegetable Lamb and illustrated it in his Histoire Admirable des Plantes (1605), citing as an authority the Talmud (in fact, the Mishna Kilaim). It is depicted on the title-page of Parkinson's Paradisi in Sole (1656), and in De la Croix's Connubia Florum (1791). Even after Hans Sloane examined a specimen in 1698 and identified it as a portion of an arborescent fern, the myth persisted. H. Lee argues that the legend arose from classical descriptions of the cotton plant, introduced from India into western Asia; Herodotus describes a corselet ornamented with gold and 'fleeces from trees', and Theophrastus describes wool-bearing trees. The present drawing does not derive from the Mandeville/Parkinson/De la Croix images, but is closely related to an illustration in Johann Zahn's Physico-Mathematico-Historica (Nuremberg: 1696), which it almost certainly pre-dates. Cf. H. Lee, The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary , 1887; The Age of the Marvellous . (3)
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
