Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde. Eine systematische Bearbeitung der Gross-Schmetterlinge der ganzen Welt. Abteilung II. Exotische Fauna. Volume XIII: Die Afrikanischen Tagfalter.

Stuttgart, Fritz Lehmann, Alfred Kernen, 1908-1925. Two volumes (text, atlas) in one. 4to. (33.3 x 26.0 cm). Title to the volume (XIII) and to the parts. vii, 613, [i] pp.; 80 chromolithographed plates. Later green blind half linen over marbled boards; copy of pictorial cover mounted on front board. Speckled edges. = Single part of one of the largest and most beautifully illustrated works on butterflies and moths. Its fine plates were made using the process of 10-14 colour lithography, and its excellent quality has remained unsurpassed. The editor, Friedrich Joseph Adalbert Seitz (1860-1938), planned to finish the whole work in 1912. This proved to be quite unrealistic as publication stopped in 1954, and several volumes remained unfinished. The most important collections of butterflies were consulted including those of L. W. Rothschild of Tring, the British Museum, the Paris Natural History Museum, the Senckenberg Museum at Frankfurt, as well as collections in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Australia, South- and North America, etc. This part deals with African butterflies. It was published over a very long period, the plate volume being concluded 17 years after the text. Usually found with the text and atlas separate (as published), but here both bound together. Some wear to the boards; a few plates more or less toned. Otherwise very good. Cat. BM(NH), p. 1895; Nissen ZBI, 3799N.