Description

Samudra Tsjogam

Original, antique, hand coloured, copper engraving of a Hawaiian Baby Woodrose by Hendrick Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein.

This botanical prints is very rare.

Hendrick Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein was a colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company and naturalist. Between 1670 and 1677, he served as a governor of Dutch Malabar and employed 25 people on his book Hortus Malabaricus, describing 740 plants in the region. The Dutch East India Company encouraged publication of scientific work; the documentation of the useful plants by Van Rheede helped to fight local diseases. The Hortus was published in twelve volumes and each plant is described in four languages: Latin, Sanskrit, Arabic and Mayalam (an Indian dialect).

At the time, Drakenstein’s contemporaries had never heard of these plants, let alone see them. Hence, his work was ground-breaking and much praised by experts like Linnaeus.

Printed in Amsterdam between 1678-1693.