A Forget-Me-Not. Flowers from nature, with selected poetry

Book Description

New York: [privately published], 1849 [but 1848]. Folio. (15 3/4 x 10 7/8 inches). Letterpress title, 18 leaves of letterpress text. 18 original botanical watercolours by Clarissa Badger, highlighted with gum arabic. Original red moiré cloth, covers blocked in gilt with an elaborate neo- classical design with a large central motif of two muses, lyres in hand, seated at the foot of a column topped by an urn, all surrounded by a border of stylized foliage and birds at the corners, cream glazed-paper endpapers, gilt edges, spine expertly repaired. All within a modern red morocco-backed red cloth box, titled in gilt. The rarest American colour plate botanical book, here containing the maximum recorded number of original watercolours This work was privately published and apparently issued with varying numbers of both 'plates' and text leaves: it is very rare and we know of only two other copies both complete as issued. One with 13 water-colours and text leaves was sold at Christies London (sale: March 17, 1999, Lot 4), and we have handled one other inscribed copy with 17 watercolours and text leaves. The present example is therefore the most extensively illustrated copy recorded to date. "Both Clarissa Munger and her sister, Caroline, were artists. Caroline went on to become proficient at painting miniature portraits on ivory… Clarissa concentrated her talents on drawing plants and flowers. In 1828 Clarissa married the Reverend Milton Badger. During their marriage they lived … in.. Massachusetts.; New York City; and… Connecticut… Though little is known about her life other than the landmark dates of her birth, marriage, and death, Mrs. … Badger's fine drawings and talented hand have survived to keep her name alive" (J. Kramer. "Women of Flowers" New York: 1996). Mrs. Badger was an illustrator with an intuitive feeling for the decorative, as she amply demonstrates in this work and in her later published works. The present work is in effect a prototype for these published works ("Wild Flowers drawn and coloured from nature" [New York: 1859, 4to, 22 plates] and "Floral Belles from the green-house and garden" [New York: 1867, folio, 16 plates]).

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