Beschreibung:

NOURY, Captain Charles (1809-1868). A bound collection of natural history watercolours, ‘Histoire Naturelle; Voyage dans l’Oceanie’, aboard the frigate La Sirene , French Polynesia (Society Islands, Tahiti, Marquesas and Nuku Hiva), 1847-1850 and after 1850. Five volumes, 425 x 305mm, containing 458 plates in total, c.210 x c.320mm each, almost all in watercolour, sometimes heightened with gum arabic, 17 in pen and pencil, plates numbered in ink, depicting fish, birds, reptiles, crustacea, molluscs, zoophytes, and plants of the South Pacific, the albums titled and arranged as follows: ‘MAMMIFÈRES [ 1 plate ], OISEAUX [ 20 ], REPTILES [ 7 ], POISSONS [ 72 ]’; ‘POISSONS [ 100 ]’; ‘POISSONS [ 78 ], ANIMAUX ANNELÉS OU ARTICULÉS [ 25 ]’; ‘ANIMAUX ANNELÉS OU ARTICULÉS [ 27 ], MOLLUSQUES & ZOOPHYTES [ 77 ]’; and ‘VÉGÉTAUX [ 51 ]’ (occasional cockling to the watercolour plates, some offsetting). Original half-green shagreen, gilt stamped ‘C N’; [ With: ] Autograph manuscript volume, in French, c. 320 written pages, 315 x 220mm, calligraphic titles, autograph emendations and annotations, comprising Noury’s accompanying descriptive register of species, organised according to their zoological classification, chiefly following the taxonomic system established by Henri Milne-Edwards, cross-referenced with the plate numbers given to the watercolours in the albums. Contemporary half-green suede (edges bumped and scuffed). A mid-19 th -century compendium of South Pacific zoological watercolours charting the exploration and discovery of the flora and fauna of French Polynesia under the sailor and naturalist Captain Charles Noury (1809-1868): an important natural history work, recently rediscovered. For three years from 1847, Charles Noury captained the French frigate La Sirene stationed in Tahiti and the Marquesas, returning to France in 1850 with the extraordinary fruits of his labours in the South Pacific: a naturalist’s treasure trove of watercolours depicting the fish, birds, reptiles, crustacea, molluscs, zoophytes, and plants of French Polynesia. Upon his return, Noury imposed taxonomic order on the collection, grouping the watercolours in albums and writing up his notes from Polynesia into a register of species, in which he gives a description and observations for each one, often including the names by which the Pacific islanders knew them. Noury produced only a handful of the plates himself – the painter, or painters, aboard La Sirene who captured the likeness of hundreds of South Pacific animals and plants remains a mystery to us – but his close supervision is evident throughout, not least at the junctures in his text where he criticises the way his artist has rendered a certain species. Back in France, with full bibliographic resources now at his disposal, the significance of the watercolours for the contemporary study of the animals and plants of the South Pacific was clear; of the 184 species of fish that he describes, 28 were unknown to science at that time. Yet, in spite of their importance for natural history and undeniable aesthetic appeal, the present volumes were not designed for publication; the only record of Noury’s three years in French Polynesia that he did bequeath to the French academic community was his Album polyn é sien of 1861, a collection of images of objects from Tahiti and Nuku Hiva of ethnographic, rather than zoological, interest. Although the botanist Édélestan Jardin (1822-1896) made intriguing reference in 1858 to the fact that ‘Monsieur le capitaine de vaisseau Noury […] possède un album de dessins accompagnés de notes dont la publication serait fort désirable’, the albums remained unpublished and unknown to science for over 160 years: it is only now that the importance of these volumes can be recognised and they can assume their place in the canon of 19th-century natural history. Charles Noury was born in Nantes in 1809, joining the naval academy at Angoulême as a young man in 1823. He first set sai