FIRST EDITION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT AND BEAUTIFUL ANATOMICAL TREATISE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, WITH 726 SUPERB HAND-COLOURED, LIFE-SIZED LITHOGRAPHS ‘one of the most beautifully illustrated anatomical and surgical treatises ever published in any language’ (Heirs of Hippocrates) Jean-Marc Bourgery (and Jacob Bourgery, Claude Bernard and N.-H. Jacob), Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme: comprenant la médecine opératoire / J.-M. Bourgery; avec planches lithographiées d'après nature par N.-H. Jacob. Paris. C. A. Delaunay, 1831 - 1854. Eight large folio volumes (45 cm), with coloured frontispiece and 726 coloured lithographs, finished by hand, 11 folded and life sized. Bound in contemporary and fully-restored half green sheepskin and marbled boards. Some slight tears have been professionally repaired. The bindings are now fine, and the text and plates in similar condition with only slight staining and occasional spotting. This anatomical treatise, a large-format textbook and illustrated atlas, is considered a masterpiece of anatomical imaging, made both in black and white and, as here, in its rarer and more expensive hand-coloured (or, more accurately, hand-finished) FIRST edition. Bourgery was not limited in this ambitious project to the mere compilation of existing material. He supported his findings by autopsy and produced even original anatomical preparations. He dealt with aspects of morphology that had previously been neglected; he developed a number of new methods and research approaches, which he described systematically and in detail. Bourgery strived to be up-to-date. Thus, he received numerous first observations, especially in the fields of the nervous system anatomy, embryology, and organogenesis. Metaphysically, he saw himself as a traveller in search of a universal structure, the secret of which he hoped to unravel through persistent research of the supreme anatomical discipline– far more than just a comprehensive collection of morphological findings. Bourgery did extracurricular research and was occasionally supported by well-known scientists, such as Mathieu Orfila, François Magendie, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and others. The Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme comprises eight enormous volumes with 2108 pages of text containing 725 plates (and a lovely frontispiece representing the ‘three ages of man’) with a total of 3750 individual images. The first five volumes are dedicated to descriptive anatomy, two volumes deal with surgical anatomy and theory, and the last volume focuses on the general anatomy and philosophy of anatomy. Bourgery paid great attention to the quality of the illustrations because they were meant to be ‘drawn to nature’. Nicolas Henri Jacob was already established and later honoured as a draftsman; he mastered lithographic techniques and also knew the subject of medical science quite well. He drew and lithographed 512 of 725 plates and 2196 illustrations out of 3750. There have been also other students and artists who collaborated with him, among whom were Charlotte A. Hublier, Jean Baptiste Léveillé, Edmond Pochet, and others. All the plates were made using a lithographic technique invented by Alois Senefelder. The procedure allowed a much more accurate drawing and gave a better haptic impression of the anatomical structures than in woodcut or copper engraving. Initially, the lithograph produced only black-and-white images with grey gradation, and these were painstakingly coloured by hand using a brush or stencils. Only the second edition was actually printed in colour with the lithograph in colours. This makes the FIRST edition, as listed here, especially attractive: the hand-colouring to the surgical plates gives them a depth and luminosity not found in later editions, and certainly not in the black and white editions. Please see close up of Plate 23 in the photos to see a lovely example of blue hand-painted additions. This first edition was published by C. A. Delaunay in Paris. Subscribers received from 1831 to 1840 a total of 70 deliveries. At that time, a black-and-white copy cost about 800 francs and a coloured copy 1600 francs (before binding costs). To estimate these prices, a workman manufacturing silk in Lyon would be paid 2 francs per day, and a lavish meal in Boulogne (‘with a great variety of made dishes, a dessert of nuts and fruits, and a bottle of red wine’) would have cost 3 francs. The equivalent of 1600 francs in 1840 would be £64. That, in turn, would be the equivalent of £6400 in today’s currency (or US$7750 and €7500). The high price obviously was an obstacle for the spread of the work, and almost all copies went to institutional libraries. Copies have appeared at auction (most recently on 4 May 2023 at Bonhams (NYC) where a copy with ‘light rubbing and soiling to covers, some spine ends slightly chipped, scattered foxing and minor staining’ sold for $19,125. A copy sold recently at Ader (16 November 2023) for 11,050 Euros, but it had tears, substantial foxing, major wear to the bindings, and two volumes with inner joints completely broken. The work was subsequently translated into several languages, including English, Italian and German, but without the hand-coloured plates or with only some plates coloured but not by hand. When Choulant published the original German edition of his history and bibliography of anatomical illustration in 1852 Bourgery and Jacob had not completed the first edition of their publication, and Choulant may not have considered it in the category of historical works. However, it is also possible that, working in German libraries, Choulant was unfamiliar with the work since he also ignored the earlier French lithographed atlas by Cloquet that definitely fell within the scope of his study. More significantly, in 1898, when Duval and Cuyer published their Histoire de l'anatomie plastique, they ignored Bourgery and Jacob's monumental work, perhaps considering it a practical work rather than recognising its great aesthetic value. Recently all the coloured plates from Bourgery and Jacob's work were republished in a magnificent two volume folio edition with an excellent and very thorough historical introduction by Jean-Marie Le Minor and Henri Sick, which provides a great deal of information on this work that was not previously available. The editors point out that although most of the text has become obsolete the anatomical images are still very useful and informative, and the surgical images are among the best illustrations of nineteenth-century instruments and operations. The commentaries of the new edition are in French, German, and English: Bourgery and Jacob, Atlas of Human Anatomy and Surgery (2005). The work was praised lavishly during its appearance. When the first volume was printed, it was described as having ‘superb and truthful detail’ and as being ‘a masterpiece of precision’ (Revue médicale, française et étrangère, 3, 1831, 353); and when volume 8 appeared the Société des beaux-arts de Paris described it as ‘utterly magnificent’ (Annales de la Société libre des beaux-arts, 4, 1854, 15). In their sale catalogue of 11 March 2019, Bonhams described this work as ‘without a doubt the most spectacular anatomical atlas ever produced.’ REFERENCES S. Boudry, ‘Nicolas-Henri Jacob dessinateur et lithographe’, L'Estampille, l'objet d'art 417 (October 2006): 54-59. Étienne-Jean Delécluze, ‘Des travaux anatomiques de M. le Docteur Bourgery’, Revue de Paris (17 May 1840): 208–222. Martial Guédron , ‘Les petites mains de l’anatomie en couleur : à propos du Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme de Bourgery et Jacob’, Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, 57, 2018, 137-49. Reinhard Hildebrand, ‘Bourgery und Jacob, Hirschfeld und Léveillé – über Meisterwerke der anatomischen Ikonographie zur Blütezeit der Lithographie’, Anatomischer Anzeiger, 158, 1985, 363–372. ----. ‘Un beau monument iconographique de la science de l'homme : der Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme des Anatomen Jean Marc Bourgery und seines Zeichners Nicolas Henri Jacob’, Medizinhistorisches Journal, 23, 1988, 291-318. Natalie J. Lauer, Der Kontrakt des Zeichners mit der Medizin. Ästhetik und Wissenschaft im Bildatlas Bourgery & Jacob. Würzburg 2013. . BIBLIOGRAPHY Brunet I, 1179;.Heirs of Hippocrates 1569; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 536-38; Waller 1372; Wellcome II, p. 214. COLLATION Tome I: Anatomie descriptive physiologique. Appareil de relation et organes de locomotion. Ostéologie et syndesmologie. Paris: Delaunay, 1832. [4], 191 pages. Frontispice and 59 coloured plates numbered 1 to 159. Tome II: Anatomie descriptive physiologique. Appareil de relation et organes de locomotion. Myologie et aponévrologie. Paris: Delaunay, 1834. 141 pages and coloured plates numbered 60 to 159. Some brown marks in the upper corner. Tome III: Anatomie descriptive physiologique. La névrologie ou les organes de l'innervation. Paris: Delaunay, 1844. 4 pages and 341 pages, and 114 coloured plates (seven folding), numbered 1 to 100. Includes plates 34 bis, 36 bis, 36 ter - 37 bis, 38 bis, 43 bis, 48 bis, 57 bis; 79 bis, 81 bis, 85 bis, 88 bis, 89 bis and 89 ter. Tome IV: Anatomie descriptive physiologique. Appareil de nutrition , les organes de la circulation, de la respiration, l'angiologie. Paris: Delaunay, 1835. 162 pages and 97 coloured plates numbered 1 to 91. With plates 4 bis, 5 bis, 9 bis, 10 bis, 10 ter, 11 bis. Tome V: Anatomie descriptive physiologique. Paris: Delaunay, 1839. [5], 342 pages with 95 coloured plates numbered 1 to 75 bis, including out double page. With plates 14 bis, 14 ter 14 quarto, 15 bis, 15 ter, 16 bis, 16 ter, 20 bis, 22 bis, 24 bis, 25 bis, 26 bis, 28 bis, 29 bis, 29 ter, 35 bis, 35 ter, 41 bis, 59 bis and 75 bis. Some damp staining. Tome VI: Anatomie chirurgicale. Paris: Delaunay 1837. [4], 280 pages and 93 coloured plates numbered 1 to 91. With plates 33 bis and 83 bis. Tome VII: Anatomie chirurgicale et opératoire [edited by Claude Bernard]. Paris: Delaunay, 1840. [4], 356 pages and 98 coloured plates from 1 to 77 and from A to P. With plates 22 bis, 38 bis, 39 bis, 56 bis, 57 bis. Tome VIII: Embryogénie, Anatomie physiologique, microscopique et comparée. Paris: Delaunay, 1854. [4], VIII and 335 pages. LII and I unn umbered page; 67 coloured plates numbered 1 to 60. With plates 10 bis, 13 bis, 14 bis, 14 ter, 16 bis, 20 bis, 42 bis.