Histoire Naturelle des Lepidopteres d"Europe

Paris: F. Savy, 1864. Second edition.

80 VERY FINE HAND-COLORED ENGRAVED PLATES OF EUROPEAN BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS.

Two 9 1/4 inches tall hardcover volumes, brown pebbled cloth binding, 3/4 brown leather spine with raised bands, black gilt leather title labels, leather corners, gilt rulings, marbled edges, patterned endpapers. Vol. I, 285 pp; Vol. II, hand-colored engraved half-title, 80 hand-colored steel engraved plates of lepidoptera and 2 uncolored plates of collecting equipment with tissue guards. Leather corners and spine edges rubbed, browning to preliminary pages and tissue guards, plates bright and clean, light pencilled species names and author citations following engraved generic names below the framed engravings. Very good in custom archival mylar covers.

PIERRE-HIPPOLYTE LUCAS (1814 – 1899) was a French entomologist, assistant-naturalist at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle Paris. From 1839 to 1842 he studied fauna as part of the scientific commission on the exploration of Algeria.

ALPHONSE NOEL (1838-1904) was a French artist who painted the engravings "following nature."

HIPPOLYTE AND POLYDORE PAUQUET were French brothers and natural history illustrators. Hippolyte-Louis-Émile Pauquet (1797 – 1871) was the elder of the two and was largely responsible for engravings based on the illustrations by Polydore Jean-Charles Pauquet (1800 – 1879), though the two shared credit for their works. They first served as apprentices to their father, Jean Louis Charles Pauquet, and in 1812 enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Their work was exhibited at the Paris Salon through the 1820s and 1830s, though their recognition came mainly from their publications.