Beschreibung:

WOLF, Johann (1765-1824) and Bernhard MEYER (1767-836). Naturgeschichte der Vögel Deutschlands in getreuen Abbildungen und Beschreibungen. Nuremberg: J. F. Frauenholz, 1805 [-1821]. 2 volumes, large broadsheets (500 x 400mm). Titles and text in French and German (lacking German title to vol. I), 176 HAND-COLOURED ENGRAVED PLATES (of 180). (Lacking 4 supplementary plates, a few plates lightly spotted and browned, but a fine copy.) Near-contemporary light-brown calf gilt, covers with decorative border composed of rules and acanthus and palmette roll, the spine in six compartments with raised bands, two onlaid with blue leather lettering-pieces, the others with central bird tool (a swan within a diamond, a dove, two with eagles) surrounded by smaller tools, edges and turn-ins with gilt roll, g.e., by C. Smith (joints and spines lightly rubbed, covers with one or two scuff marks). Provenance : Greve Scheel (stamp on titles); Nathaniel Philips (armorial bookplate); Henry Bohn (buyers at Philips' sale); J. G. Children (manuscript letter addressed to him bound in before p. 131, vol. I). FIRST EDITION of a rare work: there are reputed to be only about 16 copies in existence. Few copies have appeared at auction: apart from the Bradley Martin copy (Sotheby's New York, 7 June 1989, lot 239), three copies have appeared in Britain this century (Sotheby's, 10 March 1910, lot 216, (4.6s; Catling, 22 June 1916, lot 407, (3; Sotheby's, 8 February 1954, lot 124, (680) and two in Germany since 1960 (with only 85 and 18 plates). None of these copies has had the full complement of 180 plates, cited by Nissen and Fine Bird Books : the British Library and Bradley Martin copies, like the present one, have only 176 plates, lacking the four supplementary plates issued in 1821. The work was issued in twenty-nine parts: according to the BMC NH catalogue, "a thirtieth part was in preparation, and others projected, in January 1821". Wolf's list of the contents of the parts appears in "Isis", Bd. VIII, 1821, Beylage 4, but differs both from the actual contents of the parts and the published list of plates in volume I. The plates are by J. C. Bock and A. Gabler after his own work and that of J. M. Hergenröder. The plates are described by Ripley and Scribner as "bridging . . . two eras in ornithology, the eighteenth century era of high stylization and the nineteenth century period of realistic portrayal". The present copy's text leaves have been left with extremely wide margins to enable them to be bound next to the plates to which they refer: other copies are bound as two quarto volumes of text and an atlas volumes of plates. Nathaniel George Philips (1795-1831), whose bookplate appears in each volume, was an artist and bibliophile whose library was sold by Evans in March 1837 in a two-day sale totalling (1464. The Evans sale catalogue records this book (under its French title, presumably because the first volume lacks the German title) as lot 497, calf extra, gilt leaves, sold to Bohn for (18.10. It seems likely that the next (identifiable) owner of this copy was John George Children (1777-1852), the addressee of an undated manuscript letter from the dealers Chambers & Jeffrey bound in before p. 131 of volume I. Children was a writer and chemist who was secretary of the Royal Society from 1826-1827 and 1830-1837. At the time of receiving the letter from Chambers & Jeffrey he was working at the department of zoology in the British Museum. In the present letter, Chambers & Jeffrey are responding to Children's concern at the apparent absence of leaves Qqq to Ttt (pp. 122-130): they reassure him that they have contacted a Mr. Nestler in Hamburg (presumably their agent there), who has contacted the publishers, who, in their turn, assure him that these leaves "do not exist. By mistake of the compositor and neglect of the same hand, these catch words . . . [had] been overlooked. In the description however, nothing is wanting. This deficiency therefore affects o