La botanique de J.J. Rousseau, ornée de soixante-cinq planches, imprimées en couleurs d'après les peintures de P.J. Redouté.

4to: [4]-159-[1]-xi pp. (lacking pp. i-iv), 65 pl. (faintly brown. and fox., edges sl. brown., bad marg. cutting affecting p. 117).

Contemp. half red morocco, gilt floral tools on flat spine. Good hardly trimmed copy (35,5 x 25 cm).

1st separate edition (1st posthumous in "Oeuvres" 1782) and 4to copy (a folio ed. also exists), containing a collection of botanical letters to various persons, an "Introduction" and "Fragments pour un dictionnaire des termes d'usage en botanique". Ill. (complete) with a b/w stipple-engraved vignette on title and 65 plates protected by tissue guards, stipple-engraved by Bouquet, Jacques Chailly, Mlle Delelo and others after Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), printed in colour by Langlois and finished by hand. Beautiful plates representing flowers but also fruit, roots, stalks, etc. Exiled amongst the natural beauties of Switzerland in 1763 or 1764, Rousseau (1712-1778) developed his interest in botany, and made various collections of plant specimens or herbaria.
Ref. Nissen 1688. - Pritzel 7824. - Great flowers books, p. 134. - Plesh 662.