Creator
Jean Charles Chenu (1808-1879).
Title
Spondlyus mollusk, from Illustrations conchyliologiques, ou, description et figures de toutes les coquilles connues vivantes et fossils.
Publisher
Paris: A. Franck, Fortin, Masson, and Langlois et Leclercq,
Date
1842-45.
Description
Lithograph colored à la poupée and finished by hand, 13¾ x 10 in.
This lithograph is one of 482 plates (of which 345 are colored) found in Illustrations conchyliologiques, one of the rarest (and certainly one of the most beautiful) of all color-plate shell books. It was published in four parts, and the copy in my collection is bound in three folio volumes (about 19 inches tall). The French naturalist Jean Charles Chenu was the curator of the enormous shell collection of Baron Delessert, to whom this work is dedicated. Chenu wrote extensively on mollusca and other natural history subjects.
Jim Needham and I collected shell books together for over thirty-five years. Grow¬ing up, I had spent summers on the coast of North Carolina, whose beaches are a rich source of shells deposited by the Gulf Stream. I had a small malacology collection. In the mid-1980s at a print show in New York City, Jim purchased a number of colored plates from a broken copy of Chenu. These Chenu plates have adorned the walls of our apartment ever since.
This lithograph is one of 482 plates (of which 345 are colored) found in Illustrations conchyliologiques, one of the rarest (and certainly one of the most beautiful) of all color-plate shell books. It was published in four parts, and the copy in my collection is bound in three folio volumes (about 19 inches tall). The French naturalist Jean Charles Chenu was the curator of the enormous shell collection of Baron Delessert, to whom this work is dedicated. Chenu wrote extensively on mollusca and other natural history subjects.
Jim Needham and I collected shell books together for over thirty-five years. Grow¬ing up, I had spent summers on the coast of North Carolina, whose beaches are a rich source of shells deposited by the Gulf Stream. I had a small malacology collection. In the mid-1980s at a print show in New York City, Jim purchased a number of colored plates from a broken copy of Chenu. These Chenu plates have adorned the walls of our apartment ever since.
Source
Florence Fearrington