LIST ON EBAY Convolvulus Augustifolius Abraham Munting 1696 - Copper Stitch Munting Botany 1696 Condition: --not specified Ended: Jan 26, 2023 07:18:00 PST Winning bid: EUR 15.80 "Convolvulus non Convolvulus Angustifolius." Copper engraving with light plate tone on laid paper, (1696) Sheet size: approx. 37.5 x 25.5 cm Plate size: approx. 32 x 21 cm Author: Abraham Munting Published by Leiden, 1696 Date: 1696 Medium: copperplate engraving Condition: Very good This highly decorative, folio botanical engraving comes from an edition of Abraham Munting's "Naauwkeurige Beschryving Der Aardgewassen (Accurate Description of Terrestrial Plants). Abraham Munting. Pieter van der Aa & Francois Halma, Leyden & Utrecht" This is a rare and unusual work depicting plants set in or floating above distant landscapes. The plants are often larger than life, with decorative scrolls presenting their Latin names. The surreal and tranquil scenes are enchanting, and the prints are superbly decorative and highly sought after. Abraham Munting (1626-1683) was a Dutch botanist and botanical artist. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Groningen, where he remained for 24 years as an eminent professor of botany and chemistry. There he directed one of the most extensive botanical gardens of the period from 1658 to 1683. Munting’s most famous work Naauwkeurige Beschryving Der Aardgewassen (1696), was published posthumously and is an enlarged and revised version of his previous book Waare Oeffening der Planten (1672, 1682). The work found popularity due to the new design of the images which featured the plants against charming landscape backgrounds. --- "Each plate shows a different plant in flower, including many exotic species from America and other distant lands. The plant dominates the foreground, filling the entire page, often with a detail of the fruit or the flowers presented on a smaller scale. In some cases the plants are presented à trompe l'oeil, while in others they have been arranged in decorated urns. Sometimes gardening tools are depicted as well. The name of each plant appears written on an elegantly fluttering ribbon or cartouche, or on a crumbling marble plaque. The originality of the work lies, however, in the small landscapes that have been inserted into the background of the plates. Here the artist gave full rein to his imagination, delineating scenes that in reality bore little relation to the actual habitat of the plants. Pastorals with animals and figures alternate capriously with vistas of walled cities and landscapes containing classical statues and ruins." (Lucia Tongiorgi-Tomaso An Oak Spring Flora p.174) The 'Naauwkeurige' enjoyed particular success, at least in part due to the novelty of the plates, which in a radical departure from the iconography of the traditional florilegium, presented its plant species against a charming series of landscape backgrounds. Whether this was the idea of Munting or those who completed the work after his death is not known. Among the illustrations are trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses of temperate zones, along with a number of tropical and subtropical plants imported for cultivation to the Netherlands.