FORGET-ME-NOT. FLOWERS FROM NATURE, WITH SELECTED POETRY.
Badger, Clarissa W. Munger (illustrator); [Lydia Mary Sigourney; William Cullen Bryant; Mary Howitt; and others (contributors)]:
New York: [Privately printed], 1849 [i.e. 1848]. Letterpress title, 18 leaves of letterpress text. Eighteen original botanical watercolors by Clarissa Badger, highlighted with gum arabic. Folio. Original red moiré cloth, covers blocked in gilt with an elaborate neo-classical design with a large central motif of two muses, lyres in hand, seated at the foot of column topped by an urn, all surrounded by a border of stylized foliage and birds at the corners, cream glazed-paper endpapers, a.e.g. Spine expertly repaired. Very good. All within a modern red morocco- backed red cloth box, titled in gilt. The rarest American color plate botanical book, here containing the maximum recorded number of original watercolors. This work was privately published and apparently issued with varying numbers of both "plates" and text leaves: it is very rare and we know of only two other copies both complete as issued. One with thirteen watercolors and text leaves was sold at Christie's London (sale: March 17, 1999, lot 4), and we have handled one other inscribed copy with seventeen watercolors and text leaves. The present example is therefore the most extensive copy recorded so far. "Both Clarissa Munger and her sister, Caroline, were artists. Caroline went on to become proficient at painting miniature portraits on ivory...Clarissa concentrated her talents on drawing plants and flowers. In 1828 Clarissa married the Reverend Milton Badger. During their marriage they lived...in...Massachusetts; New York City; and...Connecticut...Though little is known about her life other than the landmark dates of her birth, marriage, and death, Mrs....Badger's fine drawings and talented hand have survived to keep her name alive" - Kramer. Mrs. Badger was an illustrator with an intuitive feeling for the decorative, as she amply demonstrates in this work and in her later published works. The present work is in effect a prototype for these published works (WILD FLOWERS DRAWN AND COLOURED FROM NATURE [New York, 1859], quarto, 22 plates; and FLORAL BELLES FROM THE GREEN-HOUSE AND GARDEN [New York, 1867], folio, 16 plates). J. Kramer, WOMEN OF FLOWERS (New York, 1996).
(Item ID: WRCAM38139) $37,500.00