Descrizione

Stuttgart, Alfred Kernen, 1938. 4to. (33.3 x 26.0 cm). vi, 333 pp.; (i) p.; 26 chromolithographed plates. Publisher's pebbled half calf over linen boards; spine rich gilt with lepidopteral vignette, gilt ornamental bands and blue morocco label with gilt title. Brown marbled endpapers. Edges sprinkled red. Plates bound in green grained soft cover with gilt title on the front cover; preserved in a green sleeve on the rear pastedown. = Single part - one of the rarest - of one of the largest and most beautifully illustrated works on butterflies and moths. Its fine plates were made using the process of 10-14 colour lithography, and its excellent quality has remained unsurpassed. This part deals with mostly quite colourful butterflies from the Americas. Many species are new. The author, Friedrich Joseph Adalbert Seitz (1860-1938), planned to finish the whole work in 1912. This proved to be quite unrealistic as publication stopped in 1954, and several volumes remained unfinished. The most important collections of butterflies were consulted including those of L. W. Rothschild of Tring, the British Museum, the Paris Natural History Museum, the Senckenberg Museum at Frankfurt, as well as collections in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Australia, South- and North America, etc. A near mint copy. Cat. BM(NH), p. 1895; Nissen ZBI, 3799Na