PASSE (Crispin de, the young) & WALDNELIUS (Joannis).... Lot 17

PASSE (Crispin de, the young) & WALDNELIUS (Joannis). Cognoscite lilia agriquomodo crescant, non laborant, neque nent... [Cologne], sn, [sd (c. 1615)]. Small oblong in-4 of [1] f. engraved title and 56 plates depicting 111 plants (ch. 1-117, lacking plates 9-10, 60-61, 106-107 and 118-119), two per page (except one). Cream vellum of the period. Some wear to the binding, foxing in places, top corner gnawed from plate 94-95 onwards with significant loss to the engravings of the last 3 plates. A very rare collection by the draughtsman and engraver Crispin de Passe le Jeune (Cologne ca. 1597-Amsterdam ca. 1670), forming the sequel to the Hortus floridus, a remarkable collection of flower plates much sought after by garden lovers. He was a pupil of his father Crispin I le Vieux (c. 1565-1637) with whom he worked in Utrecht from 1612. Thanks to the copperplate engraving, C. de Passe allows a finer and more realistic representation of the plant morphology. The multilingual captions (Latin, French, Dutch and English) suggest that this collection was intended for an international audience.