Clove Flower, Drum Wood and Madablota, Three Antique Plates, 1806

This set of three original antique copper engravings, Plates 128, 134 and 135 from Sonnerat's Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine, is sold as one set. They are three original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split. Plate 128 shows the flower of Saint Thomas, a branch in flower and bud with the ribbed fruits and a sectioned flower drawn beneath. Plate 134 shows the drum wood in flower and fruit, a leafy branch with small flowers and a large lobed fruit, with the fruit drawn in section beside it. Plate 135 shows the madablota in flower, a branch with a loose head of fringed flowers and buds above broad veined leaves, with a single flower drawn below. Each sheet carries its engraved plate number at the upper right, the artist and engraver credits at the foot of the image and its caption lettered beneath.

Pierre Sonnerat published his Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine in Paris in 1782, and the plates were reissued in this separate folio volume by Dentu in 1806 under the title Collection de planches pour servir au Voyage aux Indes Orientales et a la Chine. Every image was drawn by Sonnerat himself during the voyage he made for the French crown between 1774 and 1781 and then cut on copper by the Paris engravers who worked for him. They are original copperplate engravings, printed from the intaglio plates onto laid paper. The engraved plate number stands at the upper right, the artist and engraver credits run along the foot of the image and the caption is lettered beneath. The sheets are uncolored, as the plate volume was issued.

The botanical plates close the volume and are the quietest sheets in it. Sonnerat drew the useful and the strange: the spice plants, the fruit trees and the flowering trees of the Indian Ocean, generally with a fruit or a flower taken apart and drawn separately so that the structure can be read. All three sheets are the same size and the same orientation and come from one volume of one book, which is why they are offered as a set and not one at a time. Sonnerat is remembered in the names of the things he found. The mangrove genus Sonneratia carries his name, so does the gray junglefowl Gallus sonneratii, and the botanical author abbreviation Sonn. stands for him. He was the first to put the name aye-aye into print, and the name indri entered European use through him as well. The plates in this volume are the record of that work.

Noticeable uneven toning on some sheets. Marked handling soiling along the edges of all three sheets. Scattered light foxing in the margins of all three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the three sheets.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. This item is sold unframed.