KNORR Georg Wolfgang Deliciae Naturae Selectae oder auserlesenes Naturalien-Cabinet welches aus den drey Reichen der Natur zeiget, was von curiösen Liebhabern aufbehalten und gesammelt zu werden verdienet / Délices physiques choisies, ou Choix de tout ce que les trois règnes de la nature renferment de plus digne des recherches d’un amateur curieux, pour en former un cabinet choisi de curiositez naturelles.

Nissen, ZBI, 2227; Brunet, III, col. 682; Graesse, IV, p.35.

First edition, completed and published after the death of its author in 1761.

A magnificent work, based on originals preserved in several cabinets of curiosities – including those of Trew and Müller – which “ont eû la bonté de fournir les moyens d’en tirer les figures au vif, les arracher ainsi à l’oubi, & faciliter par là l’avancement des connaissances humaines dans les secrets admirables de la Nature. Il étoit d’autant plus convenable de mettre de cette façon un étude aussi noble à la portée de tout le monde, que les Originaux & Chefs-d’oeuvre de la Nature, dont nous faisons ici part au Public, sont rares, & qu’on ne les trouve guères rassemblez dans un seul & même Cabinet” (préface).

Knorr’s interest in natural history began to develop when he worked with other artists to create engravings to illustrate Scheuchzer’s Physica Sacra, published between 1731 and 1735 in Augsburg.

“Knorr was one of the protogeologists of the eighteenth century who is intermediate between the collectors of cabinets of natural history and those who first made use of fossils for the identification and mapping of stratigraphic succession. This was the generation that finally established the organic origin of fossils and accumulated sufficient descriptive material to classify their finds within the biological kingdom, thus providing the paleontologic basis for the law of faunal succession… The extraordinary  quality of the plates, representing the eighteenth century continuation of the tradition of Dürer, led to expansion of the work by Walch, as well as to French and Dutch edition. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the beauty of some of Knorr’s illustrations exceeds that of their models and that in all cases the artist’s eye has transformed neutral, natural objects into permanent, formal aspects of humanism. The detail and accuracy of Knorr’s engravings not only made possible zoological classification but firmly established the distinction between fossils of organic origin and sports of nature” (DSB).

The work contains the follwing engravings : corals (15 plates), shells (7), butterflies (6), urchins (4), minerals (6), crustacea & spiders (7), starfish (4), fish (9), birds (7), quadrupeds (14), reptiles & amphibians (12). Plate K:XI remargined.

Rare copy, complete with all plates and containing the almost always missing engraved portrait.