Author: Bonnet, Charles
Title: [Portrait by James Caldwall].
Description: London, Dr. Thornton, 1802. Large single sheet (44.2 x 31.7 cm). The more or less oval printed surface measures about 30 x 19 cm, with additional printing in the bottom margin. = A fine engraving of the famous Swiss-French botanist, entomologist, and naturalist Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) from Geneva, author of, for instance, the Recherches sur l'usage des feuilles dans les plantes (1754). The mezzotint portrait by the English engraver James Caldwall (1739-1822) shows Bonnet surrounded by The chain of nature, with finely engraved miniature natural history scenes and objects, clockwise starting with mineral, then fungi, plants, insects, etc., and ending with an eagle, bat, lion, monkey and, finally, Man. This was based on Bonnet's Idee d'un echelle des etres naturels, published in his Traité d'insectologie (1845). The engraving states that he is the author of The contemplation of nature, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was made after a portrait by J. Juel (1770) for Thornton's Sexual system of Linnaeus (1802). See the website of the Wellcome Collection. Some foxing and creasing in the margins, otherwise very good.

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