James Bolton | Genera Muscorum, illustrated manuscript, 1787

James Bolton

Genera Muscorum An Illustration of the Families of Mosses in Figures taken from Nature & Magnified.

Manuscript with 12 numbered highly detailed full-page watercolour drawings of mosses, on rectos only, one depicting various flowers and seeds to illustrate the “Fructification of mosses”, the eleven remaining illustrations depicting different genera of mosses, mostly with magnified images of plant, flower, and seed head, one also with smaller “life-size” illustration of the same moss, each with descriptive text on the facing verso, with minor corrections, the illustrations within red ruled borders and text with brown ruled borders, with title page and a one-page index at the back with a colophon “This Book made by Ja:s Bolton at Halifax Anno Domini 1787”, altogether 26 pages, plus blanks folio (300 x 230mm), contemporary red Morocco with covers stamped in gilt (“Genera Muscorum”), rebacked, upper cover faded, covers worn especially at corners and stained, tears to three end-leaves with crude tape repairs including to the verso of the index, slight spotting

James Bolton (1735-99) was a natural history artist and mycologist. He published three major titles in his lifetime: the first work on British Ferns, Filices Britannicae (Part One in 1785, and Part Two in 1790); the first British work pertaining to fungi, An History of Funguses Growing about Halifax (1788–91); and a work on British songbirds, Harmonia ruralis (1794–96). In the case of each, Bolton provided both the text and illustrations. His exceptional talent for recording detail is exemplified in this manuscript, with its exquisite, minutely observed hand-drawn reproductions of mosses, many of which were of a tiny size. 

PROVENANCE:

Stanley family, Earls of Derby (nineteenth century armorial bookplate)