Hortus Botanicus – Volume with 99 Original Watercolors of Fungi or Mushrooms

This volume with 99 superb original fungi or mushroom watercolors is from a manuscript entitled Hortus Botanicus which illustrated plants according to the Linnaean system often based on the revisions by Karl Ludwig Willdenow. The manuscript was completed in Vienna between 1810 and 1820. The paper is dutch and datable to the late 18th and early 19th century. There are watermarks from the makers of C.& J. Honig, J. Kool, J. Villedary, and D. & C. Blauw.

This volume is absent Willdenow references as his revision of Linnaeus was not yet completed at the time. It is bound in contemporary quarter morocco over cloth boards bound by E.L. Geyer of Vienna, flat spines gilt, leaves uncut, marbled endpapers.

Each watercolor details the sources for the illustration in the lower nomenclature. The original artist is named in the left corner and the right corner states the source work of the original illustration. The watercolor artist for the manuscript is unknown. A good portion of the watercolors were after Jacquin’s works including Icones plantarum rariores, Florae Austriacae, and Plantarum rariorum Horti Caesarei Schoenbrunnensis. Illustrations were also after Aiton, William Curtis, Oeder, Scopoli, Cavanilles, Besler, Rheede, Roxburgh, Banks, and Pallas.

Provenance: Library of Henry Rogers Broughton