Buffon

rif. 70171 — Paris F. Dufart An X-XIII 1802-1805. 21 parts in 21. 8vo 19.4 x 12.2 cm. Over 9000 pp. 308 finely engraved plates on 307 leaves; one large folding chart. Uniform contemporary polished tree-calf with empire style gilt borders and ornaments. Red and black morocco labels with gilt title. Marbled endpapers. Edges speckled red. = A massive work and part of a larger series on various natural history subjects ranging from botany to entomology and from mineralogy to conchology but this is the complete section dealing with mammals. The first two volumes contain a general introduction to the Animal Kingdom followed by three volumes dealing with Man two with monkeys and apes one with whales and othere aquatic mammals and 13 with all other mammals including cats bears deer pachyderms bats marsupials etc. Sonnini was both the author and editor of this "suite de Buffon". The fine engravings are by Barraband Berthault Blanchard Duhamel Racine and others. Several plate numbers are out of sequence but none are missing. A few pecies for instance the guinea pig are described but not illustrated. Plate X and XI of volume 11 are on one leaf. Boards with some mainly minor rubbing; a few volumes with the leather on the boards not the spines more abraded. Some light in a few sections moderate age-toning and some spotting throughout; the plates generally cleaner. some paper loss in the margin of quadrupèdes volume 1 pp. 55-56; and volume 5 pp. 101-102 and 263-264; one gathering in volume 12 detached otherwise a very good unmarked and attractively bound set. Junk Rara p. 30; Nissen ZBI 2388. hardcover