Dominic Winter Auctions
Lot 77
Sinclair (Isabella). Indigenous Flowers of the Hawaiian Islands. Forty-four Plates Painted in Water-colours and Described by Mrs. Francis Sinclair Jr., 1st edition, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1885, 44 chromolithograph plates after Sinclair by Leighton Brothers, light toning/staining to nine plates (nos. 16-24), gutta-percha perished and contents detached, some spotting mostly to title, early inscription to front blank 'From R.J. Lillie to Mrs S.A. Smith, Xmas 1890', all edges gilt, original gilt-blocked pictorial cloth, cloth torn with loss at head of front board and spine torn also with loss, worn, folio (36.7 x 27.2 cm) QTY: (1)NOTE:Great Flower Books, p.139; Nissen BBI 1848.The author collected the flowers depicted on the islands of Kauai and Niihau, the most northern of the Hawaiian Archipelago. the appearance of each was recorded as the author feared that many species would be lost. Joseph Dalton Hooker assisted with the botanical names of the plants.H. St. John in Pacific Science, 1954: "This is the first book with colour pictures of Hawaiian flowering plants... Even today it has more colour plates of Hawaiian plants than any other book".Don R. Severson, Michael D. Horikawa and Jennifer Saville, Finding Paradise: Island Art in Private Collections, Honolulu, 2002, p. 178: "Published in the form of a typical Victorian 'floral album,' Isabella Sinclair's series of watercolours was by far the most luxurious guide to Hawaiian flora to have been published up to that time".