The trees of North America Michaux and Redouté's American masterpiece

Book - 2017

A landmark volume of American forestry, illustrated by a French botanist and written by an English botanist and plant explorer in the mid-1800s, is reproduced and gorgeously rendered in full-color with capsule summaries of every tree species featured.

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Subjects
Published
New York, NY ; London : Abbeville Press Publishers [2017]
Language
English
Other Authors
Susan M. Fraser (editor), Gregory (Gregory R.) Long (writer of foreword), Marta McDowell (writer of introduction), David Sibley, 1961- (writer of afterword), François André Michaux, 1770-1855 (-)
Edition
First edition
Item Description
At head of title: New York Botanical Garden.
Physical Description
392 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 29 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 382-383) and indexes.
ISBN
9780789212764
  • Foreword : The North American sylva and the New York Botanical Garden / Gregory Long
  • Preface : The North American sylva : a landmark of American botanical history / Susan M. Fraser
  • Introduction : François-André Michaux and Thomas Nuttall : the forest and the trees / Marta McDowell
  • The plates
  • A note about the plates
  • The species
  • Afterword : The North American sylva and the art of botanical illustration / David Allen Sibley.
Review by Choice Review

This book presents for the first time color reproductions of all 270-plus illustrations from two editions of The North American Sylva (created in 1817 by François-André Michaux and expanded in 1841-49 by Thomas Nuttall). These volumes were the first attempts at comprehensive, scientific descriptions of North American trees, and are important to both the history of science and scientific illustration. The illustrations, mostly by the great botanical illustrator Pierre-Joseph Redouté, began as paintings and were then copied to copper plates (and later polished stone) by master engravers. The final step in production was hand coloring in the early editions, and later making multiple prints for each color in the lithography process. Understanding the creation of these illustrations immensely increases one's appreciation for their artistry and accuracy. Each tree species illustration encompasses a full page, with only the currently accepted common and scientific names added. Following the original illustrations is a section with brief, modern descriptions of the trees (four to a page) by experts from the New York Botanical Garden. Natural history illustrator and field guide author Sibley provides biographic information about the original artists and their printing processes. The text is recommended for libraries with concentrations in natural history, art history, or the history of science. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; researchers and faculty. --Glenn D. Dreyer, Connecticut College

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This handsome volume has historical, aesthetic, and horticultural value. The New York Botanical Garden's rare-book collection has yielded here a new edition of the landmark volumes by 19th-century botanists François-André Michaux and Thomas Nuttall that first catalogued North American trees. Renowned 19th-century botanical artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté supplied many of the original hand-colored illustrations, and contemporary botanical artist David Allen Sibley's accompanying essay illuminates the process of reproducing botanical illustrations and also draws the eye to tiny technical details. Other contextualizing essays help explain the significance of this remarkable work, but the bulk of the book is the series of illustrated plates-a visual compendium of all-American maples, oaks, pines, elms, ash, and many more-rich in subtle detail. Anyone with eyes to see the art of nature will appreciate this beautiful book. 270 color illus. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Review by Library Journal Review

What John James Audubon's drawings were to birds, 19th-century botanists Michaux's and Redouté's artwork was to arboreal illustration. Naturalist David Allen Sibley provides an afterword and additional illustrations, and other botanical experts offer occasional commentary, but the 270 full-page color plates are the heart of this title, reprinted from original drawings by Michaux, Redouté, botanist and zoologist Thomas Nuttall, and others, largely from the 1800s. Staff at the New York Botanical Garden supply notes about each species, collected at the end of the book. -VERDICT While a pocket reference guide would be more useful in the field, this full-size volume allows readers to examine closely leaves, seeds, and flowers. Suitable for most -libraries.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley Sch., Fort Worth, TX © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Excerpt from Foreword The importance of the seminal works of father-son team André (1746-1802) and François-André (1770-1855) Michaux and Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859) to the study of American forestry as well to the foundation of The New York Botanical Garden's LuEsther T. Mertz Library Collection cannot be overstated. André's Flora Boreali-Americana (1803) was the first American flora and François-André's The North American Sylva (1817), with supplementary volumes by Nuttall in the 1840s, was the first silva . The latter remained a standard work for the study of North American woody plants throughout the 19th century. NYBG was founded in 1891 (its 250-acre site selected primarily because of stands of centuries-old trees and great diversity of woodland plants), and trees of this continent were an early area of research by its scientists. Shortly thereafter, the Garden's library was formed with high ambitions to become a comprehensive repository about the plants of the world. The Michaux work, in all of its many editions in French and English was--and continues to be--one of its most important acquisitions. We are delighted to present these important illustrations in a new volume on the occasion of the 125th Anniversary of The New York Botanical Garden. In the 1890s, the Garden's founding Board established the Special Book Fund to acquire the antiquarian and rare materials that would form the base of our now world-renowned library. Philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan were among the principal donors to the Fund. Founding Director Nathaniel Lord Britton and his colleagues used this support to acquire thousands of rare books and illustrated folios for the new library. The first editions of The North American Sylva and other volumes by Michaux were acquired at this time. We have continued to add to the Michaux collection, including through an ongoing gift of works from the library of David L. Andrews, M.D., starting in 2002. Some of our original editions of Michaux came from the collection of David Hosack, M.D. (1769-1835), who not coincidentally founded our predecessor institution, the Elgin Botanic Garden (1801-1812), the first botanical garden in New York City. Notably, among the volumes that Dr. Andrews donated was also a signed and numbered edition from the personal library of John Torrey, M.D., the father of American botany. It is natural that much of our collection has come from the libraries of physicians. There has always been a close connection between the medical profession and plant science, and many early botanists were themselves physicians. Both Hosack and Torrey held the position of chair of the botany department at Columbia College, and were instrumental in fostering the expansion of materia medica and botanical knowledge, which was vital to medical practice. This interest propelled New York City to become the center of American botanical scholarship in the early 19th century. New York City's continued prominence in plant science coincided with public interest in American natural history, ornamental horticulture, and Romantic garden design, as well as the growth of the nursery and seed industries--of which the Michaux, father and son, were involved through the nursery they ran for many years in New Jersey. The final push was the reform-minded City Beautiful Movement, which spurred the creation of the City's great cultural institutions at the end of the 19th century, including NYBG. Since then, the Mertz Library has become the premier library of botanical works in the world. Each year, thousands of researchers from a variety of science and humanities disciplines, including molecular systematics, plant genomics, the history of science, new world exploration, garden and landscape history, botanical illustration, the book arts, and urban ecology, consult these wonderful collections. The Mertz Library has been generously funded over many years by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust as well as The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and many others. The Library currently holds more than 1.3 million physical and digital items, including more than 18,000 rare volumes dated before 1850 and comprehensive, pre-Linnean collections of Medieval and Renaissance herbals, and large and small folios, alongside the latest botanical and horticultural publications. We also have one of the most active digitization programs of any botanical garden in the world, and are a founding member of the Biodiversity Heritage Library. I would like to thank Susan M. Fraser, NYBG Vice President and Director of the Mertz Library, for engendering this project and contributing an essay on the publication history of The North American Sylva . She also organized a group of Garden staff to verify plant names and write the short species descriptions. They are acknowledged individually on page ##. We are also indebted to garden historian Marta McDowell and artist-naturalist David Allen Sibley whose own essays establish the context for this remarkable work. Gregory Long Chief Executive Officer The William C. Steere Sr. President Excerpted from The Trees of North America: Michaux and Redoute's Rediscovered Masterpiece All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.