Iconographie des Champignons Superieurs

Juillard-Hartmann, G. Iconographie des Champignons Superieurs. Auzoux: Paris, 1919. 8vo ( mm) 5 vols in 3, red cloth

JUILLARD-HARTMANN, G [Victor Georges Louis (1845-1936)]

Iconographie des Champignons Superieurs: Tome I Hymenomycetes, Tome II Hymenomycetes, Tome III Hymenomycetes, Gasteromycetes.

[Epinal (Vosges): Juillard et fils and Paris : Dr Auzoux] 1919.

Octavo (240x160mm) five original volumes now in three, later bound uniformly in red cloth; red smooth morocco, gilt lettered spine label; marbled endpapers, unpaginated; 2513 chromolithographic illustrations in 250 plates.  Volume I [44]pp (being the author's preface and the indexes from all five volumes) and plates 1-73; volume II plates 74-156; volume III plates 157-200; all with explanations on the opposing page. In French.

 Lacks original wrappers and preliminaries including volume title-pages.  Bookplate to front paste down "Ex Libris Jacques Helene Bon".

From the author's disclaimer in Volume I (translated):

"There is no complete iconography of mushrooms.  The plates are distributed in many works that are difficult to obtain.... I thought I was doing a useful job by bringing together in the present publication the illustrations of all the species of higher fungi drawn and painted to date....  I [have given] preference to the original plates, that is to say to the plates made by the authors who first described and presented the mushrooms [save where they are ] bad and I have replaced them.  To make...the work affordable...I have represented ... [most of the] mushrooms in half size [and the spores are uniformly scaled to a magnification of 1000]." 

In other words, the illustrations are, in most cases, direct reproductions in half-size of the original illustrations from the seventy four classical texts on mushrooms referenced.  Each illustration is attributed to its original author.

Juillard-Hartmann was a French politician and industrialist in the Vosges region.   He was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1927.

An excellent reference copy.  Superb plates in fine condition.

§  cf Mykolibri 989;