Details
KAEMPFER, Engelbert (1651-1716). Amoenitatum Exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum... descriptiones rerum Persicarum & Ulterioris Asiae. Lemgo: Henrik Wilhelm Meyer, 1712.
4° (221 x 173mm). Title in red and black with engraved vignette. Engraved frontispiece, 78 engravings (15 folding plates or views; 1 folding map of the Persian Gulf by F.W.Brandshagen; 23 full-page illustrations; 32 full-page botanical illustrations, the majority of Japanese plants; 7 small illustrations), 12 woodcuts (8 full-page illustrations; 4 small illustrations), all after Kaempfer. (Occasional light browning.) Contemporary blind-stamped vellum (spine slightly soiled). Provenance: Sir Charles William Broughton-Rouse (armorial bookplate).
FIRST EDITION of the only work by Kaempfer to be published in his lifetime. A significant proportion of the work is on Japan, including the important list of Japanese flora. The author was part of the 1683 Swedish embassy to the Shah of Persia. From Isfahan he joined the Dutch East India Company as physician to the company's station at Bandar Abbas. He reached Java in 1689 and joined the annual voyage to Japan in the following year; he spent 2 years in Japan, mostly in Nagasaki, but visited Edo twice. Stafleu & Cowan 3483; Nissen BBI 1018; Wellcome III, p.376.
4° (221 x 173mm). Title in red and black with engraved vignette. Engraved frontispiece, 78 engravings (15 folding plates or views; 1 folding map of the Persian Gulf by F.W.Brandshagen; 23 full-page illustrations; 32 full-page botanical illustrations, the majority of Japanese plants; 7 small illustrations), 12 woodcuts (8 full-page illustrations; 4 small illustrations), all after Kaempfer. (Occasional light browning.) Contemporary blind-stamped vellum (spine slightly soiled). Provenance: Sir Charles William Broughton-Rouse (armorial bookplate).
FIRST EDITION of the only work by Kaempfer to be published in his lifetime. A significant proportion of the work is on Japan, including the important list of Japanese flora. The author was part of the 1683 Swedish embassy to the Shah of Persia. From Isfahan he joined the Dutch East India Company as physician to the company's station at Bandar Abbas. He reached Java in 1689 and joined the annual voyage to Japan in the following year; he spent 2 years in Japan, mostly in Nagasaki, but visited Edo twice. Stafleu & Cowan 3483; Nissen BBI 1018; Wellcome III, p.376.