• BANKS' FLORILEGIUM

    AND OTHER LIMITED HISTORIC EDITIONS

Welcome to Alecto Historical Editions,
publishers of
rare & exclusive EDITIONS
of important historical SERIES
hand-PRINTED by master craftsmen in OUR OWN STUDIOS

BANKS' FLORILEGIUM

comprises 743 engravings of plants gathered by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander on Captain James Cook's First Voyage round the World in HM Bark Endeavour, 1768-71.

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KARL BODMER'S Illustrations to
Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied's
Travels in the Interior of North America
1832 -1834

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Six Plates From
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON'S
BIRDS OF AMERICA

The first printing from the original copper plates since 1839

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ILLUSTRATIONES
FLORAE NOVAE HOLLANDIAE
1813

Botanical engravings from Captain Matthew Flinder’s circumnavigation of Australia in HMS Investigator 1801-1803

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Nine Plates From
PIETRO ANDREA MATTIOLI'S
1565 HERBAL

Printed from the original woodblocks

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WILLIAM DANIELL'S
VOYAGE ROUND GREAT BRITAIN
1812 - 1825

306 aquatint engravings depicting coastal scenes, ports, harbours, ships and mariners, lighthouses and castles of Regency Britain.

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JEAN DUBUFFET'S
BANQUE DE L'HOURLOUPE

Cartes à jouer et à tirer

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PRESS COMMENTS

  • Banks' Florilegium

    "It is as if the long process of discovery and revelation had been imprisoned within three tons of copper and is at last to be released to find embodiment on the printed page... The completion of Banks' Florilegium will be a debt magnificently discharged to the memory of Joseph Banks, to Solander and Parkinson and to their engravers. It will also be a declaration of faith to those who will look on with wonder in time to come."

    THE TIMES

  • Banks' Florilegium

    "This work is a major contribution to world knowledge. It is a foundation stone in the study of Australian natural history."

    THE ADVERTISER
    AUSTRALIAN SATURDAY REVIEW

  • Audubon's Birds of America

    "Even greater care is being taken over the colouring. Coloured inks are being applied to the plate itself, a technique that was probably too expensive for the original edition, but which enables the quality of the engravings to be conveyed to the print with even more delicacy. So these new prints could be said to be even nearer to the perfection Audubon was seeking, with Robert Havell, one hundred and fifty years ago. "

    Sir David Attenborough
    in the BBC documentary "Million Pound Bird Book"

  • Bodmer's America

    ‘…The series represents on of the last great illustrative print projects… using techniques that vary little from those of the 19th century… a new hand printed edition of Bodmer’s acclaimed etchings of the American West.’

    World Herald

  • Banks' Florilegium

    "It is as though a great buried archaeological cache of art and science is being opened to the world... Yes, Banks' Florilegium now lives, a part of the stock of Western civilisation, a permanent flowering."

    SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE

  • Banks' Florilegium

    "Certainly anyone who looks at the finished works cannot help but be overcome by the infinite patience, care and scholarship that has gone into the venture. Each and every print is a work of great beauty and of such historical importance that it is quite overwhelming."

    THE FINANCIAL TIMES

  • Mattioli's Herbal

    "…the only surviving representatives of the great folio of woodcut scientific blocks of the mid-16th century. The Mattioli blocks were the culmination of technical virtuosity in botanical woodblock design."

    William Patrick Watson

  • Banks' Florilegium

    "... compared with the value of many a merely passable painting these days, considering their historical importance and seeing their superlative craftsmanship I suspect they are going to be botany's true blue chip."

    THE GARDEN

  • Banks' Florilegium

    "No one will ever see such a thing again, a living record of a voyage of discovery."

    WORLD OF INTERIORS

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