Catalog Archive
Auction 180, Lot 809

One of the Finest Illustrated Mushroom Books Ever Printed

"Icones Farlowianae - Illustrations of the Larger Fungi of Eastern North America",

Subject: Miscellaneous Books

Period: 1929 (published)

Publication:

Color: Printed Color

Size:
11.5 x 14.3 inches
29.2 x 36.3 cm
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This volume features 103 superb chromolithographs depicting some of the most beautiful American mushroom plates ever made. There were only 500 sets printed and they are exceedingly rare. The original specimens were collected by William Gilson Farlow between 1889 and 1911 with the intention of publishing a guide for their identification. Farlow was an American cryptogamic botanist and professor of botany at Harvard University. During his career he was president of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Society of Naturalists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Botanical Society of America. He employed two great artists, Joseph Bridgham and Louis Krieger, to prepare the illustrations of the specimens and had the plates printed by the Boston Heliotype Printing Co. Unpublished at the time of Farlow's death in 1919, the work was continued by Farlow's student, Edward Angus Burt, and finally published in 1929. 103 color plates (1 folding) by Joseph Bridgham & L.C.C. Krieger; X pp.; 120 pp. of text. Folio. Hardbound in original gilt-lettered green cloth with wax-paper dust jacket.

References:

Condition: A+

Pristine interior with minor occasional offsetting as is common with this work. Tight binding and a couple of tiny scuffs on covers.

Estimate: $800 - $1,000

Sold for: $600

Closed on 11/18/2020

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