Impressive 18th-century French botanical manuscript, illustrated with 423 botanical drawings



[BOTANICAL MANUSCRIPT - FRIAR LUC DAVID].
[Drop title:] Traite des plantes universelles par figures au naturel par le frere Luc david Recollet, chirrugien oculiste ...
[France], 1742. Large folio (ca. 45 x 28 cm). With 423 botanical drawings in bright watercolour. Manuscript with French text (including Latin names of the depicted plants), written in an 18th-century cursive hand. Most leaves contain a "Strasbourg bend" watermark: a fleur-de-lis above a shield with a diagonal band and the countermark "L Laroche" (identical to Heawood 65, but erroneously listed by him as "I Laroche", date: 1718-1721). The French papermaker Léonard Laroche (1646-1721) was active in the French province of Angoumois (now Charente) in the period 1673-1721.
Contemporary vellum, later endpapers. [2], 423, [1 blank], [19] ll. Full description
€ 58,000
[France], 1742. Large folio (ca. 45 x 28 cm). With 423 botanical drawings in bright watercolour. Manuscript with French text (including Latin names of the depicted plants), written in an 18th-century cursive hand. Most leaves contain a "Strasbourg bend" watermark: a fleur-de-lis above a shield with a diagonal band and the countermark "L Laroche" (identical to Heawood 65, but erroneously listed by him as "I Laroche", date: 1718-1721). The French papermaker Léonard Laroche (1646-1721) was active in the French province of Angoumois (now Charente) in the period 1673-1721.
Contemporary vellum, later endpapers. [2], 423, [1 blank], [19] ll. Full description