MATTIOLI, Pier Andrea – LIBERALE, Giorgio (c.1527-1580, designer) and Wolfgang MEYERPECK (1505-d. after 1579, woodblock cutter). Woodblock, depicting Aquilina Aquilegia vulgaris [n 629, Columbine]. Prague, c. 1563.

Pear woodblock (222 x 160mm). Paper label by Duhamel Du Monceau on verso, with his inscription in ink giving the plant names based on Caspar Bauhin’s Pinax; back of block with knife trial cuts by the Formschneider and indentations from the support slugs used in the printing press for adjusting the block height (light worming, as usual, not impairing image).

An original woodblock used to print one of the most important Renaissance herbals—among the most important surviving sixteenth-century printing surfaces, and the only major scientific woodcut blocks existing from that period. For more on these remarkable woodblocks, see previous lot. The present image was first printed in the 1563 German edition of Mattioli’s Herbal. “The hooked spurs of the flowers see are carefully indicated. This species is the parent of many garden varieties” (Sandra Raphael). This is one of the blocks selected fo ruse in the limited edition of new prints. See Watson, Raphael, and Bain, The Mattioli Woodblocks (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1989) for a full listing and discussion of the history, and especially Iain Bain’s “Technical note on the blocks.”

[Offered with:] Watson, Raphael, and Bain. The Mattioli Woodblocks. Designed by Simon Rendall and printed at the Stamperia Voldonega, Verona. Copy no. 77 of 150. With nine illustrations printed from the original blocks in a portfolio.

[And:] Set of 26 "working proofs" for the above volume, on arches paper. Each print with caption and number in green pen and stamped in green "WORKING PROOF." All housed in paper portfolio stamped "MATTIOLI WORKING PROOFS" in Green and with "Arches paper: set 2" written in ink on front.