Frontispiece by Rabel Daniel (1 results)

No binding. 13 x 8.5 inches, modern gouache coloured copperplate engraving. The 'Theatrum Florae' by Daniel Rabel (1578-1637) was printed in Paris in 1622 by Nicolas de Mathoniere. Published anonymously, it was an immediate success, and further editions were printed in 1627 and 1633. It was only in the third edition that the name of the author, Daniel Rabel, finally appeared. Confirmation of his authorship can be found in an album of botanical paintings signed by Rabel and now in the Bibliotheque Nationale; it contains drawings that formed the basis for some of the engravings in 'Theatrum Florae'. Rabel was a man of many talents; a painter, engraver, portraitist, designer of theatre sets for ballets, creator of garden ornaments and plant-beds, engineer, and finally painter, as he signed himself in the album. However, although Rabel was responsible for the preparatory drawings, it is not certain that he executed the engravings. Rabel was born in Paris; his father, Jean, was also a painter. Rabel seems to have been the very first artist of natural subjects to enjoy the patronage of Gaston, duc d'Orleans, a younger brother of Louis XIII. This prince took a lively interest in the natural sciences and in the cultivation of flowers, pastimes he indulged in the splendid gardens of his chateau at Blois. Paintings on natural themes became fashionable in France during this period in large part due to his encouragement. Gaston commissioned Rabel to paint several vellums that came to form the original nucleus of the celebrated royal collection of botanical paintings today conserved in the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, a collection to which Nicolas Robert also contributed a few decades later. Active though he was in many different areas, Rabel's fame rests on his botanical and floral paintings, which inspired eulogies from many of his contemporaries. Rabel also designed the titlepage and frontispiece, with their sophisticated allegorical imagery. Blunt (1950) pp. 107-08; cf. (1958) Hunt 212; Nissen BBI (1966) 1575; 'Oak Spring Flora' (1997) pp. 69-73.