Description:
Shells from nature. And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life . Genesis 1.20. In the great and wide sea are breeding things innumerable. Psalm 104, Verse 25. English manuscript on paper. No place 1828. Illustrated watercolour title with manuscript text, 90 watercolour plates with hundreds of images of shells, plates and including title numbered in a cont. hand 1 through 91 in upper right corner. Cont. English dark purple half morocco, flat spine richly gilt. Endpapers lined with yellow Spanish marbled paper based on polychrome stone marbled decoration. All edges gilt. 4to (285 x 224 mm). Extremeties slightly worn.A finely executed pictorial survey on shells by a talented English female watercolourist. Hephzibah Need (1758-1841) was born into a wealthy family. Her father Samuel Need (1718-1781), was a successful hosiery industrialist in Fountain Dale, Nottingham and a key figure in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1747 he acquired a row of… Read More