In 1768 Captain Cook set off around the world in a ship the length of three buses.

The objective of the expedition was to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun -a celestial event that would not be visible for another 100 years. The accurate observation and mapping of this phenomenon would help calculate the exact distance from the Earth to the Sun- a measurement that would prove invaluable to the field of navigation.

As 84 officers and men fought the seas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, below decks in a cluttered cabin, sharing the 106-foot Endeavour a team of botanists led by Joseph Banks made notes and watercolors of plants collected from wherever the ship struck land.

Bank's (who spent £10,000 of his own money on the expedition) party included some of the most accomplished botanists of the time, Daniel Solander, a gifted pupil of Linnacus; Sydney Parkinson, the 23 year old botanical artist; and a second artist, Alexander Buchan to chart landscapes.

Banks and Solander were enthusiastic collectors. In the three -year journey they spent less than a third on dry land, yet they collected every plant and anima in sight - 3,607 species and some 30,000 individual specimens. Back on board with their specimens the two botanists showed Parkinson how the drawings should be depicted and hurriedly made descriptions while the plants and other objects were still fresh.

The Alecto Edition
1979 Alecto Historical Editions in association with the British Museum (Natural History) agreed to embark on the mammoth task of printing Banks' Florilegium for the first time.

The care and complexity involved in printing the 743 engravings is unsurpassed in publishing. Quite apart fromthe expert cleaning of the original copper plates, each time a print was pulled as many as 16 colors had to be worked by hand into the single plate.

Under the direction of the master printer Edward Egerton-Williams, the printing of Florilegium began in June 1981. The copper plates still wrapped in the original acid-laden eighteenth-century layers of paper which had eaten minute pock marks and score lines in the soft copper. The first step was cleaning and restoration of theplates and then to chrome each plate for protection. The plates were now prepared to be inked and printed on an Albion hand roller press. With up to fifteen colors for intricate images, the process took eight years to complete. And in all cases watercolour embellishments were added, the artists working directly from the original drawings, supplemented by Banks' own notes.

The results have surpassed every expectation with the Keeper of prints and Drawings acknowledging, "If Banks were living now this is the way he'd have had it done".

An Edition of 110 sets plus 3 Exhibition sets
BanksFlorilegium had one hundred-thirteen impression made of each image. They were published in thirty five parts (each part contained between eleven and twenty three engravings) to complete all seven hundred forty-three images.

One hundred sets were numbered 1/100 through 100/100. Ten sets of hors commerce for the publishers and the Natural History Museum and three sets compiled for exhibition. There will not be another edition printed for 50 years and in fact, it is hardly conceivable that anyone will ever print so much copper plate again.

All the complete sets have already been sold. Among the subscribers are institutions including the Royal Society, Cambridge University Library and the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales. The others have gone to important public collections in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden and the United States including the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Now, we are pleased to offer individual prints from the three exhibitions sets used in exhibitions of the Banks Florilegium around the world. They are in perfect condition yet can be offered at favorable prices.

Because of the extremely limited number of prints available they are subject to prior sale.

Our online inventory shows a small sampling of the seven hundred forty-three images in the portfolio. A complete listing of genus and species names and prices is available. Please E-mail us at JBanks.com and request a copy.