The first American book with chromolithographs
The American vegetable practice, or a new and improved guide to health, designed for the use of families. In six parts. In two volumes
Boston: Daniel L. Hale, 1841. First edition, 2 volumes in 1, 8vo, pp. xii, [2], 706, [1], [1] errata; 2 anatomical plates, 24 chromolithograph plates, and 9 wood engravings in the text; full contemporary calf, red leather label on spine; one central gathering sprung, spine with hairline cracks, the whole a bit rubbed, light foxing, but on the whole a good copy or better. First and only edition of this system of Thomsonian medicine. The colored plates are chromolithographs by Sharp, Michelin & Co. after drawings by Caroline Neagus, and are the first chromolithographs in a book. William Sharp, who came to America from England in the 1830's, was a "pioneer color lithographer, one of the first American lithographers to experiment with color...he was particularly noted for his illustrations of fruits and flowers..." --Croce & Wallace. "The colored illustrations in the Materia Medica...have been produced at great expense; and were executed by a new process invented by Mr. Sharp...being the first of the kind ever issued in the United States" (Mattson's Preface). Bennett, p. 72. American Imprints 41-3458; Reese, SWANC 17: "A separate pull of the plate was required to apply each separate color, with up to five colors appearing in some plates." Item #53921
Price: $950.00
