Deutschlands-Rindvieh-Raçen nach der Natur dargestellt und beschrieben. De 1stes Heft. Oderbruchs, Oldenburger und Friesisch-Anspachische Raçe

Second edition, illustrated with 15 engraved plates hors texte, of this first part devoted to the cattle breeds of the Oderbruch, Oldenburg and Frisia-Anspach (cf. Kayser, Bücher-Lexicon, VI, 265). Thirteen plates were finely hand-coloured at the time, several of them showing the animals against handsome mountain landscapes; one of the two uncoloured plates depicts chalet utensils used in cheese-making. The French text is printed on the verso of the German text.

A very rare complete suite, preserved with its original upper wrapper, housed in a modern black box with smooth spine, red morocco lettering-piece to the spine and a large red morocco title-label to the upper cover. Light, insignificant scuffing to the covers, a few text leaves browned and shorter in the margins, a marginal tear to the uncoloured plate, a few small spots of foxing.

The work was published by the Berlin house at a moment of transition in its commercial history: the title-page still bears the historic imprint of the Realschulbuchhandlung, the bookshop of the Royal School of Berlin, founded in 1749 by Johann Julius Hecker. Georg Andreas Reimer had taken over its management in 1800-1801, before acquiring it outright in 1822. The firm, which began to circulate as the “Reimer’sche Buchhandlung” as early as 1817, would become one of the great German scientific publishers of the nineteenth century, issuing works by, among others, Schleiermacher, Fichte and the Brothers Grimm.

The general preface to the work, “An den Leser”, signed by Witte and dated Falkenwalde, June 1814, reveals the full scope of the undertaking. Beyond this first part, devoted to the German breeds of the Oderbruch, Oldenburg and Frisia-Anspach, the author refers to instalments concerning Swiss breeds: he mentions two breeds already published, as well as the projected fifth plate devoted to the cattle of Schwyz, ultimately postponed for want of a drawing considered sufficiently reliable, on the advice of M. von Fellenberg.

With this first part, E. Wilhelm von Witte inaugurated a work devoted to German cattle breeds, published in successive instalments from the 1810s onwards. The book belongs to the emerging tradition of illustrated atlases of cattle breeds, which would develop throughout the century in German-speaking Europe, combining a scientific concern for classification with a picturesque taste for depicting livestock in its natural setting.

A rare and spectacular complete suite of engravings, finely hand-coloured at the time, from one of the earliest illustrated atlases devoted to German cattle breeds, published in Berlin by the future house of Reimer in 1818.