David Grayling Books - Fine Sporting Books

110 hand-coloured plates of plants, with Latin classification & English name on most plates. No text, but the title has imprint at the base - HENRY COXHEAD and then the date. Bound in later brown half morocco, which is quite rubbed. The contents A strange - possibly unique - volume. The plates are certainly copies of the plates from Richard Duppa's "The Classes And Orders Of The Linnaean System Of Botany. Illustrated by select specimens of foreign and indigenous plants." which was published in three volumes in 1816, with 240 plates, mostly in colour. The plates in this volume list no artist or engraver, which suggests that they might have been produced without the Duppa family's permission.
So, this is really no more than a collection of plates, nicely - and puzzlingly - presented.
Richard was the son William Duppa of Culmington, Shropshire. He studied art in Rome in his youth, and became a skilful draughtsman. He matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1807, aged 37 and became a student of the Middle Temple in 1810. He graduated LL.B. at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1814. He wrote on botanical, artistic, and other sunjects and was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He died in Lincoln's Inn, 11 July 1831. D.G. There is a Henry Coxhead recorded as a printer in London during this period.