Alexander Monro

50 engraved plates on 44 sheets, including 11 folding linen-backed plates, trimmed, touching image in a few places, 2 folding plates carelessly opened resulting in small closed tear, 1 plate with repair to verso, occasional spotting and finger-soiling, some pencil annotations and lines in red pencil affecting text leaves, small ink bookseller's stamp on title, later half roan, extremities rubbed and a little scuffed, foot of spine rather worn, new endpapers, [Nissen, ZBI 2869], folio, Edinburgh, Charles Elliot, 1785.

Traité d'Ostéologie. Paris: Guillaume Cavelier, 1759. 2 volumes, 2o (590 x 425 mm). Engraved allegorial frontispiece in vol. 1, engraved vignettes on title-pages, engraved head- and tail-pieces, and 62 engraved plates (31 in outline) (some occasional marginal soiling and dampstaining, some minor spotting). Modern quarter morocco. Provenance: Ira M. Rutkow (pencil signature on rear flyleaf). FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of Alexander Monro (Primus') classic textbook on the anatomy of the bones, which was originally published in 1726 as an octavo volume without plates, and went through more than ten editions. The French translation, published in large folio, translated and edited by the anatomist Jean Joseph Sue (1710-92) was the most sumptuous edition ever published. Sue, a surgeon and professor of anatomy at the Académie Royale de Peinture, later published an anatomy for painters and sculptors (1788). His deluxe edition of Monro was illustrated with an elegant allegorical frontispiece, engraved vignettes, and 62 plates, of which 31 were outline plates, by various engravers. Remarkably Roberts & Tomlinson suggest that the translation of this work may have been done by Marie-Geneviève-Charlotte Thiroux d'Arconville, who also may have supervised the production of the illustrations. If so, this is probably the first anatomical work produced by a woman, and it is not hard to understand how such a work needed to be issued under a man's name at the time. D'Arconville had studied anatomy at the Jardin du Roi. Choulant-Frank p. 324; Duval & Cuyer, Histoire de l'Anatomie Plastique (1898) pp. 233-45; NLM/Blake 309; Roberts & Tomlinson pp. 438-45; Russell, British Anatomy 590. (2)

Alexander Monro (British, 1802-1867) The Vale Church, Guernsey pencil drawing on grey paper, bears St Helier Galleries Ltd. label verso 7 5/8 x 10¾in. (19.25 x 27.75cm.)

red chalk, 167 x 236mm., inscribed, ?albury apr. 12th 1833?, verso, unframed.

pencil and grey and sepia wash, 190 x 275mm, inscribed with title and dated july 22nd 1840 verso, unframed.