(Pansies)BARILLET(-DESCHAMPS), J(ean-Pierre) and F. LESEMANN.   LES PENSEES.   HISTOIRE CULTURE - MULTIPLICATION - EMPLOI.       Paris: J. Rothschild,   1869.          One of 200 copies; first edition thus. The pansies illustrated here were all new varieties developed by F. Lesemann, a noted pansy breeder and head gardener at Hietzing near Vienna. When a lovely folio set of chromolithographs was prepared by the Austrian Imperial printworks to record the new flowers the Parisian publisher Joseph Rothschild commissioned 200 sets to use as illustrations for a new book on pansies. For the text he commissioned Barillet-Deschamps, the famous director of gardens for the city of Paris, who prepared 26 chapters on various aspects of the flower from its etymology and history to its cultivation and use as ornamentation in parks. The 24 botanical plates are printed on heavy cream stock with their subjects depicted in rich but subtle colors framed in a soft blue-grey. Lovely and quite scarce.   4to (34.5 x 26 cm); xii + 52 pp. with wood engraved text vignettes + 25 full page chromolithographed plates printed on heavy stock, with tissue guards.   Nissen #76.          Contemporary three-quarter morocco with raised bands and marbled endpapers, original printed wrappers bound in; spine worn; one inch split at top of rear hinge; occasional mild foxing to text, slight to mild foxing on most plates. $2,000.00

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