Rare edition of a work on Dutch marine life, with 29 beautifully hand-coloured plates. The work describes the fish, molluscs, crustaceans, corals, and seaweeds that can be found in the Dutch North Sea, in particular in the province of Zeeland. The plates were drawn from life, and the explanations of the plates often mention where the depicted specimen was found. The present edition is quite rare, as we have only been able to find one other copy in sales records, and nine in libraries.
The present edition is a reissue of Natuurkundige uitspanningen, behelzende eenige waarneemingen, over sommige zee-planten en zee-insecten, which was published in six instalments from 1762-1765. A Latin edition, titled Opuscula subseciva, was published simultaneously. All three editions contain the same plates, but the dedications and the divisional title pages of the different instalments where omitted in the present edition, which is why there are gaps in the pagination. It is, however, complete. This edition is the most scarce of the three.
Job Baster (1711-1775) was a Dutch physician, botanist and naturalist, born in Zierikzee. He corresponded with Linnaeus and became a fellow of the Royal Society in London. He was the first to import goldfishes from China, and acclimatised them successfully to his garden pond. He was interested in a wide variety of subjects, and also wrote works on the earth's atmosphere, the weather, and birds, but the present work is his most well-known. It was intended to be longer, but Baster was forced to stop when he suddenly became blind in one eye in 1764. The magazine of the Dutch malacological society is named after him because of his contributions to the field of zoology.
The spine is browned, the marbled paper on the front board is discoloured. The work is uncut, and somewhat browned throughout, the top outer corner and the lower half of the fore edge margin of the title page have been reinforced, a water stain in the lower outer corner of the final leaf and the four plates at the end. Otherwise in good condition. Landwehr, Dutch books with coloured plates, 11; Nissen ZBI, 248; STCN 434837830 (3 copies); WorldCat 64148142 (9 copies); cf. Engel, H., Over een merkwaardige variant van Baster's Natuurkundige uitspanningen. In: Basteria 6 (1941), pp. 1-10; Nissen BBI, 86 (other ed.); Wellcome II, p. 112 (other ed.).