Beschreibung:

Karl Christoph Oelhafen von Schöllenbach (1709-1785) ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND MASTER PROOF PLATES for Abbildung der wilden Bäume, Stauden und Buschgewächse . Nuremberg: Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt, 1767-1804. 7 volumes., including 3 volumes of original drawings (267 x 208mm), 3 volumes of hand-coloured master proof plates (231 x 188mm), and one volume of the complete set of hand-coloured final plates in proof or finished state (231 x 188mm). Many drawings backed with blue paper, drawings and plates either mounted or on guards, several folded. Annotated for publication, primarily with instructions for the colourists. Early 20th-century vellum-backed embossed paper boards, flat spines, leather spine labels, red edges, bound by Karl Dettinger, court bookbinder at Stuttgart. Provenance : Nuremberg, Winterschmidt family, publishers of the Abbildung and other works -- Munich, Guido von Volckamer auf Kirchensittenbach (early 20th-century bookplate and inscription in one volume). The set comprises: DRAWINGS: 216 original drawings, many signed or initialed by Johann Samuel Winterschmidt and dated variously from 1781-1816, 3 drawings by Jacob Christoph Seng and 2 by D.F. Ihle, in body colour, black chalk and ink on paper, depicting trees and shrubs and including many details of their seeds, flowers and fruit. Vol. I contains 94 drawings (for 35 finished plates, including 26bis), vol. II. contains 84 drawings (for 73 plates), and vol. III contains 39 drawings (for 37 plates), including Icelandic lichen, a caterpillar, insects, and a vanilla bean. A few drawings not fully finished. MASTER PROOF PLATES: 322 proof plates coloured by hand to be used as masters for colouring the final engravings, many labelled 'Müster' and with instructions or annotations. All plates are represented in multiple copies (26 in triplicate, 18 in quadruplicate, one in quintuplicate, and the remainder in duplicate), except 29 which are in single copies; there are no master proof plates of II: 61, 65, 67-71, 73 and III:38. FINAL STATE: a complete set of hand-coloured engraved plates for the three published volumes: 35 (numbered 1-34, plus 26b); 77 (numbered 1-76, plus 63b), and 45 plates, plus 7 duplicates in uncoloured state. Most plates are in finished state with letters and fully hand-coloured, several printed in sanguine, but 12 in vol. II and 10 in vol. III are in proof state. A COMPLETE SET OF ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND MASTER PROOF PLATES, including drawings omitted from the published edition of Oelhafen von Schöllenbach's impressive work on the trees and shrubs of Franconia. The work depicts conifers, shrubs, and a wide variety of deciduous trees, including nut and fruit trees. One of a well-connected family in southern Germany, Oelhafen von Schöllenbach held various official positions in Nuremberg and Gräfenberg before being appointed Keeper of Forests at Nuremberg in 1764. In this role he undertook a significant programme of planting fruit and nut trees in Franconia, he introduced many new plants to the region, and he immediately embarked on the preparation of the Abbildung der wilden Bäume, Stauden und Buschgewächse . As Winterschmidt describes in the introduction to the edition, it was a labour of four years, and described the blossoms, growth, seeds, fruit, leaves, and wood of the trees. A large part of its value derived from the detailed illustrations drawn from nature, engraved on copper-plates, and 'illuminated' by hand-colouring. The present set of drawings and proof plates are witness to the elaborate process of preparing those illustrations. The majority of the illustrations appear to be the work of Johann Samuel Winterschmidt, junior, himself a botanist and honorary member of the Royal Botanical Society at Regensburg. He signs many of the drawings, and their dates make clear that he re-visited trees on more than one occasion, sometimes to observe the tree at different times of year, or sometimes to update an earlier drawing. Much effort was expe