Olive Shells

This lovely originally hand-colored plate is from F. H. Martini & J. H. Chemnitz’s Systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet. Neu hrsg. u. vervollständigt von H.C. Küster. Nach dessen Tode fortges. von Wilh. Kobelt und H.C. Weinkauff. This was considered the Küster edition and was published in Nuremberg by Bauer & Raspe between 1837 and 1920. The work utilized engraving and lithographic processes but all feature original hand-coloring often heightened with gum arabic. The work was one of the most rare and important shell iconographies.

“In 1837 Heinrich Carl Küster began to publish an enlarged edition of Martini and Chemnitz’s Conchylien-Cabinet, the great encyclopaedia of shells published in Nuremberg during the second half of the previous century. Some of the figures in the first edition reappear in the second? Many specialists, including Louis Pfeiffer, a leading German authority on land shells, helped bring Küster’s work to a successful conclusion, but progress was slow. The last part did not appear until 1920, more than 83 years after the first, by which time a total of 3,373 plates had appeared, most of them hand coloured, and accompanied by thousands of text pages.” (Peter Dance & David Heppell, Shells p. 82)