2 leaves with 4 hand coloured woodcuts (recto and verso).

From Plantarum effigies, 1551

Leaf size: 11.2 x 7.2 cms

Hand color.

Historically significant early octavo leaf with two woodcuts from Fuchs' celebrated herbal, published nine years after the work first appeared, offered here with unusually careful hand coloring and in fine early additional manuscript notes.

The woodcuts have a clear aspect of modernity based on first hand observation of the living plant and establish a standard of plant illustration which has been followed down to the present. The leaf on offer is from the scarce second Lyon edition, distinctive as the first printing of a smaller version of the woodcuts used in the first edition, issued in 1542 in Basel. The small editions of these works would have been used in the field, the kitchen, and the apothecary shop.

Very good condition. Minor marginal staining.