Habana: Imprenta del Tiempo printed in 1850. Book complete with nice 20 lithographed plates with original hand-colour.

 

First edition, and rare in any condition. “The first and only book of bird illustrations to be published in Cuba was ‘Aves de la Isla de Cuba’ by Spaniard Juan Lembeye.

Lembeye lived in Cuba from the 1830s to the 1860s, and became interested in birds while he was there. His book was published in Havana in 1850. It became one of the best-known works on Cuban natural history; several of the illustrations were reproduced in cigar wrappings and in souvenir ceramic plates” (Historical Museum of Southern Florida). Many of the plates are direct copies of those published by John James Audubon in his “Birds of America” (1838-1844), however Lembeye’s meticulous scientific notes are his own, and important for describing for the first time a number of new species native to Cuba, including the smallest bird in the world: the Bee-Hummingbird, or Zunzuncito Orthorthynchus Helenae.

Sin duda es esta obra una de las mas importantes y bellas de la bibliografia Cubana, siendo esta obra cumbre del arte Cubano del siglo XIX, esta considerada una obra de gran calado y para su uso investigatorio dada la naturaleza cientifica de la obra misma. Considerada una de las obras mas raras de la cultura cubana, excasa y que presenta también una edición en blanco y negro, haciendo de esta a Color casí imposible de encontrar