1785 Bladder Senna, large folio, J. G. Sturm for Johan Andreas Murray, botany

Johan Andreas Murray

Engraved by J. G. Sturm 

Bladder Senna

Extremely rare. Issued in the series: Novi commentarii Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Gottingensis, Volume for 1785. 

Published by Dieterich in Gottingen. 

Copper engraving with later hand colour. 

Sheet: 42 x 33 cm. 

Johan Andreas (Anders) Murray (27 January 1740 – 22 May 1791) was a Swedish physician of German descent and botanist, who published major works on plant-derived medicines. 

Murray studied from 1756-1759 in Uppsala, where he was taught by Carl Linnaeus. In 1760, he went to Göttingen, where he became a doctor of medicine in 1763. In 1769, he was appointed professor and director of the botanical garden. He led investigations into the properties of medicinal plants, at that time the main interest of botanists, and into the ways in which plant-derived medicines could be prepared and administered. Johann Georg Sturm was a German natural history illustrator noted for the plates in Joseph Gaertner's De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum, and for co-authoring Deutschlands Flora.

Exceedingly rare engraving, not least due to its delicate nature (folds as issued flattened) and that is was produced for the rare scientific publication: Novi commentarii Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Gottingensis.