Beschreibung:

Illustrations of the Botany and other branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan Mountains, and the Flora of Cashmere.
London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., [1833-]1839. Vol II (plate volume) only (of 2), folio (375 x 270 mm). 1 hand-colored aquatint frontispiece by J. Clark after R. Smith hand-colored lithographic garden plan, 100 other lithographic plates, most drawn on stone by Maxim Gauci and printed by Graf & Soret. Bound to style in green straight-grained morocco, covers panelled in gilt and blind, spine in six compartments with raised bands, lettered in the second and fourth compartments, the others with repeat decoration in gilt, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, marbled edges. Condition : dedication leaf torn at inner blank margins, small neat repaired tears to lower blank margins of plates 54 and 56, small stain to upper blank margins of final 9 plates; spine faded to brown, corners somewhat bumped. Provenance : Lynn Abbott Trust. a complete suite of the excellent plates from royle's erudite work on the natural history of the himalayas and kashmir . The requirements of western botanical and zoological illustration were particularly in tune with the Mughal style of painting and a number largely-anonymous artists who had been trained in the classical Indian tradition were re-employed by western scientists in India from the late 18th-century onwards. The present work includes a large selection of plates from one of the few of these artists whose name is known: Vishnupersaud (or Vishnu Prasad) who Blunt considered the 'most talented of the native Indian artists'. His output was of a consistantly high standard and was included in the works of William Roxburgh, Nathaniel Wallich and Francis Hamilton Buchanan, who remarked that the artist's pay was 'entirely inadequate as a reward for his skill, which I would venture to say is not equalled among all the natives of this country and rarely exceeded by any botanical draftsman in Europe'. Royle had arrived in Calcutta in 1819 and "was placed on the medical staff of the Bengal army, and stationed first at Dumdum, but was subsequently sent to various parts of Bengal and the North-West Provinces. In 1823 he was chosen superintendent of the garden at Saharunpore [a plan of which is included in the present work] … Unable to absent himself from his duties, he employed collectors, and brought together a valuable collection of economic plants … In 1831 he returned to England with his collections. The results of his researches he published in [the present work]" ( ODNB ). Cf. BM (NH) IV, 1758; cf. Great Flower Books (1990) p.134; cf. Nissen BBI 1690.