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First edition. An elegant new year gift book, comprising an illustrated survey of the popular French rose varieties, notes on culture and cultivation and a collection of rose poetry, completed with a calendar for the year 1819. The finely engraved plates are after Pancrace Bessa, a pupil and collaborator of Henri Redouté, painting tutor to the duchesse de Berry, and from 1823, replacing Redouté as official painter at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle. The book was reissued several times with added calendars for successive years. The varieties illustrated include: Grand cuisse de nymphe, Rose de Portland, Damas simple, Manteau d’Evêque and Rose Bichonne. Nissen 1266; Pritzel 6445.

First edition in English of one of the most influential technical painting manuals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Traité de mignature (also École de la mignature), 1673. First printed by Christophe Ballard in 1673, the publisher’s initials perhaps giving rise to an unproven attribution to one ‘Claude Boutet’, it appeared in over 30 editions in a variety of European languages over the next 200 years, often with additions and alterations by anonymous authors.

The English edition is dedicated to John Montagu, second duke of Montagu (1690–1749) by its anonymous translator. After an exposition of the available colours and materials, the chapters consider in turn: Draperies; Of Carnations [flesh], or the Naked Parts of Painting; Landskips and Flowers; followed by a short treatise on the advantages of miniature painting over other techniques. The section devoted to flowers is extensive, with detailed instructions on the painting of roses, tulips, anemones (’wind-flower’), carnations, lilies, hyacinths, peonies, crocuses, irises, jasmine, tuberoses, hellebores, daffodils, passion-flowers, pinks, pomegranate, indian bean flower and crown imperial, among others. ESTC: BL, Cambridge, Glasgow, Huntington and Clark Library only. OCLC adds Yale and National Art Library (Victoria and Albert Museum).

An excellent French herbier, the typical means of record for amateur naturalists in France, who seem to have preferred the specimen itself over a painted or drawn representation. Each plant is captioned with name, location and (sometimes) year of collection.