George Glazer Gallery - Antique Bird Prints - Natural History Bird Studies by Saviero Manetti

Saviero Manetti Natural History Bird Studies
Florence: 1767-76
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Saviero Manetti (1723-1784) (editor)
Lorenzo Lorenzi (act. c. 1760) and Violante Vanni (c. 1732-1776) (artists and engravers)
Natural History Bird Studies
from Storia Naturale degli Uccelli Trattata con Mmetodo e Adornata di Figure Intagliate in Rame e Miniate al Naturale. Ornithologia methodice digesta atque iconibus aeneis ad vivum illuminatis ornate.
[Natural History of the Birds Treated Systematically and Adorned with Copperplate Engraving Illustrations, in Miniature and Life-Size.]
Giuseppe Vanni, Florence: 1767-76
Hand-colored etchings
18 x 13.75 inches, overall
13.5 x 10.5 inches, platemark
$600 to $700 each

Engravings from a series of Italian ornithological studies. A broad spectrum of birds were included, including common European species of ducks and loons as well as many birds from what were seen as more exotic locales in Asia and Africa, such as parrots, ostriches, laughing thrushes, albatrosses and penguins. Some plates bear dedications to prominent individuals such as clergy or university professors. The illustrations are patently 18th-century in conception and style, including only a small patch of ground, sometimes with a tree branch or rock. Aside from the waterfowl, which are generally shown with water, there is no hint of habitat. As the natural history scholar S. Peter Dance has noted, the plates are distinctly Italian in sensibility, portraying the birds with a touch of whimsy, which is in keeping with the rococo taste of the period:

The production of Manetti's five massive folio volumes must have been one of the most remarkable publishing ventures ever undertaken in Florence. Begun in 1767 and completed ten years later, it was larger, better engraved and more vividly coloured than any previous work on birds, but these are not its only claim to fame. The attitudes of the birds themselves give this book its unique character. Strutting, parading, posturing, and occasionally flying over its plate are birds whose real-life counterparts would surely disown them, and not without reason, for Manetti seems in these pictures to be depicting the human comedy, the habits and mannerisms of contemporary Italian society. Nonetheless his book may still be rated among the very greatest bird books.

Saviero (also spelled Xaviero) Manetti was a physician and naturalist. He was a graduate of the University of Pisa, member of the Royal Society and served as president of the Botanical Society of Florence, as well as being the director of the Florentine Botanical Garden from 1749 to 1782. Manetti edited and wrote the descriptions for the ambitious five-volume work of folio plates called Storia Naturale degli Uccelli (1767-76), commissioned by Maria Luisa, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, who had a passion for ornithology. In the text, Manetti asserted that all the birds were drawn from life or from firsthand study of their skins. Lorenzo Lorenzi and Violante Vanni served as the artists and engravers, creating over 600 individual illustrations in a seven-year period.

Lorenzo Lorenzi was an engraver who was also a Tuscan abbot. In addition to contributing plates to Manetti’s Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, he made engravings after Annibale Caracci, Giovanni Manozzi and other artists. Violante Vanni was an engraver working in her native Florence in the mid 18th century, an unusual occupation for a woman of that era. A student of the British artist Robert Strange, she engraved religious subjects and portraits, as well as contributing natural history plates of birds to Manetti’s Storia Naturale degli Uccelli.

Condition: Generally very good with the usual overall light toning and wear.

References:

Bénézit, E. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs. France: Librairie Gründ, 1966. Vol. 5, p. 637 (Lorenzi), Vol. 8, p. 471 (Vanni).

Dance, S. Peter. The Art of Natural History: Animal Illustrators and their Work. London : 1978, p. 70.

Sitwell, Sacheverell. Great Flower Books, 1700-1900. New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990. p. 92.

Nissen, Claus. Die Illustrierten Vogelbucher: ihre Geschichte und Bibliographie. Stuttgart:1976. 588.

“Lorenzo Lorenzi: Gallo Commune…” Vatican Library Collection. 2002. http://www.vedo.com/store/item.asp?DEPARTMENT_ID=17&ITEM_ID=2966 (2 May 2005).

Wood, Casey A. (ed.) An Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology Based Chiefly on the Titles in the Blacker Library of Zoology, the Emma Shearer Wood Library of Ornithology, the Bibliotheca Osleriana, and Other Libraries of McGill University, Montreal. London: Humphry Milford, Oxford University Press, 1931. p. 450.

Zimmer, John Todd. Catalogue of the Edward E. Ayer Ornithological Library. Zoological Series, Publ. 239-240, Vol. 16. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1926. p. 241.