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THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC MONOGRAPH ON TURQUOISE
PLATES PRINTED WITH COLOURED INKS
FISCHER VON WALDHEIM, Gotthelf. Essai sur la Turquoise et sur la Calaite. ... Avec deux planches.
Moscow, Zosima brothers (printed at the Imperial University Press), 1816. 8vo. With 2 folding engraved plates, printed in green, brown and black. The text printed on light green wove paper. Modern green leather, blind-stamped.
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First edition of the first substantial scientific monograph on turquoise, clearly distinguishing the two substances bearing that name, with engraved plates printed in coloured inks appied à la poupée . "The culmination of his studies and as such excellent. ... A very rare work." (Sinkankas). Fischer von Waldheim discusses and illustrates both the mineral turquoise or callaite, mined in Persia, Arizona and New Mexico, and the similarly coloured odontolite, found in fossil teeth, and proposes a division of the former into three varieties. The views of previous writers are summarised in the preface.
The handsome engraved plates depict both mineral samples and fossil teeth. Both are printed primarily in green ink, but with the lettering in black. In the first, the images themselves are in two colours, the green being supplemented with either a brown ink or a mixture of the green and black. Part of the stippling in the second plate has been applied with a roulette. The paper for the text, with its light geen tint, must have been chosen to suit the turquoise theme. The publisher was a Moscow firm of jewelers. Set in roman types, with Russian publication data in cyrillic type on the verso of the title-page.
Fischer von Waldheim (1771-1853), a famous scientist and geologist appointed professor at the Imperial University in Moscow (1804), and director of its Museum of Natural History, was the first to suggest a comparative study of printing types to analyse the early history of printing, His description of turquoise is dedicated to Sir James Wylie.
Stamp on the verso of the title-page. An original contribution to the scientific literature and a rare curiosity of printing.
