Java-Album: Landschafts-Ansichten von Java, nach der Natur aufgenommen von Franz Junghuhn.

Leipzig, Arnoldische Buchhandlung, 1856. Oblong folio (38.0 x 53.8 cm). Letterpress title, and two-page description of the plates; eleven fine chromolithographed plates, some finished by hand. Loose as issued in original pictorial portfolio, front cover with mounted lithographed illustration and an embossed glazed gilt decoration. Junghuhn's rarest and probably also most delicately printed work, with striking views of volcano craters, mountainous landscapes, shores and forests of Java. Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn (1809-1864) was a German geographer, cartographer, geologist and naturalist who became one of the most important early explorers of Java. Following the example of the explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, whom he saw as an example and with whom he corresponded, Junghuhn illustrated his books and travelogues with coloured lithographs, which gave the public in Europe a new insight into the distant East Indies. In the time in which both Humboldt and Junghuhn lived, however, the natural sciences increasingly specialized in different areas such as botany, geology, palaeontology or geography. Junghuhn, therefore, was one of the last true polymaths who studied all parts of nature simultaneously (see Dutch Wikipedia). The original binding with some slight age-wear. Title and few plates with a short, closed, marginal tear, occasionally very slightly frayed at edges. Overall, a truly excellent copy of this fabulous work with strong colours. This work is prone to foxing, but this copy is amazingly clean. Henze II, 721, 726; Muller, Junghuhn Bild., 336; Bastin-Brommer, N 473.