Burtin, François-Xavier | Oryctographie de Bruxelles ou description des fossiles...

Burtin, François-Xavier

Oryctographie de Bruxelles ou description des fossils Tant Naturels qu’accidentels découverts jusqu’à ce Jour dans les environs de cette Ville. Brussels: le Maire, 1784

Folio (450 x 272 mm). Engraved title, woodcut ornaments in text, 32 engraved plates printed in black or sepia ink, 18 of which are hand colored, by A. Pris, J. Balconi, de la Rue and others, after Daveaux, M. J. Speeckaert, Balconi, and others; light soiling and a few pale spots to title, the text generally clean and bright with some rippling in the paper, occasional pencil annotations in the margins, light foxing and toning to plates IV, VII, IX-XII, XXI, and XII, and some unobtrusive pale spots in the margins of some of the other plates. Contemporary tree-calf patterned paper boards, with early gilt red leather spine label; light wear and occasional chipping to the board extremities, the calf rubbed and faded, hinges reinforced, rebacked in calf.

First edition of this lavishly illustrated study of the author’s fossil collection, the first book dealing exclusively with Belgian fossils.

Burtin, the medical advisor of Charles de Lorraine, was also a scientist specialized in shells and minerals, an art critic, an inventor, and a well-known collector of both artwork and natural history specimens who eventually opened his own museum. In this work, he describes various fossils and petrifications that he had discovered near Brussels, including some that were excavated via a hundred-foot-deep shaft.

REFERENCES

Landwehr, 49; Ward & Carozzi, 410