WIRSING, Adam Ludwig.

Marmora et adfines Aliquos Lapides Coloribus Suis Exprimi ... Abbildungen der Marmor-Arten und einiger verwandten Steine nach der Natur auf das sorgfältigste mit Farben erleuchtet... Nuremberg, [printed by Bieling], for the author, 1775. Super royal 4to (31.5 x 22 cm). With 73 hand-coloured engraved plates with 417 figures of types of marble (plate mark 23 x 16 cm). Nineteenth-century leather.

      84 pp. Brunet V, col. 1465; IV, col. 1243 (98 plates); Cobres II, p. 461, no. 44 (42 plates); Sinkankas 7281 (54 plates); Sotheran, Third Suppl. 2394 (54 plates); not in BMC NH, Engelmann, Honeyman, Hoover, Norman Library, Ward; cf. Landwehr, Col. Plates 1 (edition 1776); Thieme & Becker XXXVI, p. 99; Karlsruher Virt. Kat. (4 copies with 12 to 54 plates); OCLC WorldCat (3 copies with 68 plates). First edition with a large number of plates of this extremely rare work on marble with spectacularly coloured illustrations of 417 cross-sections of marble. The work was published in parts (see for instance the colophon at the bottom of p. 20 and the signature of the engraver on the first plate of the later sections), which explains the difference between extant copies in the number of plates. The Sinkankas and Sotheran copies have 54 plates (up and till the section on Tyrole), OCLC WorldCat lists three copies with 68 plates, our copy has 73, and the most complete copy of the first edition has 98 plates according to Brunet V, col. 1465. Lately a copy of the first edition with 98 plates appeared at auction. It has an additional section of 21 plates with 126 figures of Italian marble and a supplement of four plates with miscellaneous contents. We did not locate other copies of the 1775 edition with either 73 or 98 plates. The depicted stones in Marmora et adfines Aliquos Lapides are called "marble," however not all stones are "the granular/crystalline metamorphic rocks normally considered to be marbles but they include numerous very fine-grained types that probably are limestones, many veined, others spotted, and still others brecciated, and including fossiliferous varieties. In some examples the banding suggests that these are calcite onyxes or possibly several cut from cave onyxes" (Sinkankas). "Under each painting lies a complex, lightly-incised network of lines, almost like rouletting, over which the coloures have been laid. Near the end of the volume appear the most complex designs, beautifully done, of slabs of dendritic limestomes" (Sinkankas). The depicted stones come from quarries in or near Bayreuth (13 plates), Würtemberg (12 plates), Neresheim (5 plates), Durlach (6 plates), Salzburg (6 plates), Switzerland (7 plates), Baden (3 plates), Tyrole (2 plates), southern France (6 plates), Brabant (8 eight plates) and Saxony (5 plates). There are two, four, six or nine numbered samples to a plate, accompanied by text-leaves with an explanation in Latin (left column) and German (right column). The text-leaves are paginated consecutively. Adam Ludwig Wirsing (1733/34-1797) was an important engraver of natural history works, but the present, splendidly drawn and coloured work is not mentioned by Thieme & Becker. The text was provided by Casimir Christoph Schmidel (1718-1792; Poggendorf II, cols 813-814).A few leaves slightly browned and foxed, otherwise a well preserved copy with the plates vibrantly coloured and in excellent condition.