Botany.- Jacquin (Nicolai Josephi) Floræ Austriacæ, sive Plantarum Selectarum in Austriæ Archiducatu, 5 vol., first edition, 5 engraved hand-coloured vignette, 501 engraved plates, all but one finely hand-coloured, a few with touches of gum arabic, of which 1 folding (with short split at foldline), Henry Rogers Broughton bookplates, contemporary half calf, expertly rebacked preserving original backstrips, gilt, neat repairs to corners, light rubbing to extremities, [Great Flower Books p.61; Hunt 635; Nissen BBI 971; Stafleu & Cowan 3247], folio, Vienna, typis Leopoldi Joannis Kaliwoda et al., 1773-78.

⁂ First and only edition of Jacquin's rare flora of Austria containing fine plates by his principal artist Franz von Scheidl.

It is a monument of the grand Austrian botanical era which royal patronage made possible. This work and Waldstein & Kitaibel's flora are the only two 'great flower books' devoted to the Austrian flora. Blunt describes it as ranking with the 'Flora Danica' 'Flora Graeca' and 'Flora Londinensis' as the finest books dealing with the wild flowers of a European country.

The work was subsidised by the Imperial court and printed on their presses. Jacquin (1727-1817) was born in Holland of French parents. "He went to Vienna in 1752 to complete his medical studies and was soon involved in organising a botanical collecting expedition for the Emperor Francis I, husband of Empress Maria Theresa. This expedition lasted from 1754 to 1759 and sent back a very rich collection from the West Indies to the gardens of the Imperial Summer Palace at Schönbrunn. In 1768 Jacquin became Director of the University Gardens in Vienna and Professor of Botany... posts he held until his retirement in 1797." (Rix, The Art of the Botanist, p.158).