Hebenstreit, Johann Ernst | Catalogue of the Richter natural history collection

Hebenstreit, Johann Ernst

Museum Richterianum continens Fossilia Animalia Vegetabilia Mar. Illustrata Iconibus et Commentariis… accedit De Gemmis Scalptis Antiquis Liber Singularis. Leipzig: Caspar Fritsch, 1743–1748

Folio (387 x 242 mm). Title in red and black, engraved portrait of Johann Christoph Richter, double-page engraved frontispiece, 17 engraved plates, and several engraved head- and tailpieces; intermittent toning and foxing. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine gilt, red morocco lettering-piece; corners a little worn, rebacked with original spine laid down.

First edition of the sumptuous and extensively illustrated catalogue of the natural history collection of Johann Christoph Richter, a wealthy Leipzig banker and glassmaker whose cabinet encompassed over 5,600 specimens. Compiled by Johann Ernst Hebenstreit with the assistance of Christian Friedrich Boëthius, the Museum Richterianum presents minerals, fossils, gems, marbles, and biological curiosities arranged in systematic order. The plates include a fine frontispiece showing the interior of Richter’s museum.

REFERENCES

Sinkankas 2831; Wilson, The History of Mineral Collecting, pp. 94–95, 190, 222; Schulz, 1613

PROVENANCE

Pierre Lambert (booklabel to front pastedown)