BESLER, Michael Rupert Gazophylacium Rerum Naturalium e regno Vegetabili, Animali et Minerali depromptarum, nunquam hactenus in lucem editarum, fidelis cum figuris aeneis ad vivum incisis repraesentatio... [Nuremberg] 1642
Folio (450 x 290 mm), ff 35, comprising engraved title and 34 engraved plates; a fine copy in contemporary English sheep. £30,000
First edition, of great rarity. Basil Besler's Wunderkammer was inherited and added to by his nephew Michael Rupert, who here published a catalogue of his additions. This Ôtreasury of natural things from the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdomsÕ exhibits such typical Wunderkammer contents as corals, a unicorn horn, a hyoidal bone of a swan, a beak of a hornbill, a bird of paradise, a carved nautilus shell, ÔArcimboldoÕ grotesques of shells, pyritised ammonites, asbestos, ÔruinÕ marble, engraved gems and antique coins, along with such unica as Johann ZizkaÕs sword. Many rare plants and birds are figured, along with ethnographic objects such as a Brazilian Indian girdle made from the nuts of the Brazilian tree Cerbera ahovai. The image of this plate was used for the border of ValentiniÕs Museum museorum, Frankfurt 1714. The fine engraved title features a number of emblematic medallions, with a rhinocerus, a unicorn, an ostrich, an elephant, Flora holding a cornucopia, and flowers in a walled garden, and an alchemical emblem.
Michael Rupert (1607-61), a physician and pharmacist in Nuremberg, was a virtuoso scholar-collector, and also assembled an important collection of art and antiquities.
This work was apparently reissued in 1663. OCLC records copies with an additional leaf of contents, with imprint reading ÔLipsiae: Typis WittigauÕ and dated 1663. Because of the copy-and-paste nature of many OCLC library records its not clear which copies are which issue.
This work is exceptionally rare. Cobres p 101 n 8 ('Diese Auflage ist selten'); Hunt 238; Nissen ZBI 346 (not seen by him); Pritzel 747 (24 plates only); NUC: NNBG MiU (24 plates only); OCLC adds Illinois, Linda Hall, and the Bancroft (confusingly described as the first issue but giving the imprint details of the second)
£30000
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