Francesco Bacoccoli - Historia Animalium

Francesco Bacoccoli Collection: Historia Animalium
Crafoord Auktioner Stockholm has been entrusted with presenting a highly fascinating collection from one of our most legendary antique dealers and collectors – Francesco Bacoccoli. It all began by chance in 1976, with a seemingly insignificant majolica dish.
Francesco Bacoccoli stepped into an antiquarian bookshop on Birger Jarlsgatan in Stockholm. Books fascinated him – but now his gaze was drawn to the dish. There was something about it that caught his attention, something he could not quite explain. After negotiations, he bought it for 22 kronor. Shortly afterwards he sold it on for 50,000 kronor. It turned out to be Italian, from the 16th century. The episode tells us two things: Francesco Bacoccoli had an eye for beauty and quality – and he dared to take a chance.
Back home in Perugia in Italy he had met Ann from Surahammar and followed her to Sweden.
Over four decades, Francesco Bacoccoli dealt in antiques across Europe and North America and became a legend in the trade, with access to the innermost rooms of the leading auction houses. Everyone seems to have an anecdote to tell about him. In his debut book En bastu i Umbrien, his son Tomas describes the family's move to Italy when Francesco fell ill. Francesco preferred anonymity, often behind sunglasses and a hat, but had a boundless and impulsive personality that made a strong impression.
"He did and said things that most people only thought or dreamed about – and that is why many thought he was a little mad," writes Tomas Bacoccoli. "Crazy and funny and boisterous. A man who loved life, with a fascinating intellect. Great emotion and a big heart."
Francesco Bacoccoli's speciality was printed antique art. When Tomas went through his father's estate, he discovered one hidden treasure after another: books, copper engravings, maps and woodcuts of the highest quality – but also furniture and paintings.
It is a fascinating collection that we now present with great pride.

HISTORIA ANIMALIUM
Historia Animalium is the title of the first known work on animals, authored by Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC), but also the title of Conrad Gessner's (1516–1565) Renaissance work which, in five volumes, sought to cover all known species. Historia Animalium is also the heading for this highly varied and broad specialist theme on animal life, featuring literature and decorative prints from Francesco Bacoccoli's collection. Here one finds literature and a large number of hand-coloured copper engravings, etchings and lithographs of birds, insects, mammals, reptiles, spiders, fish, molluscs and shells.
Of particular interest are the many illustrations of shells, the oldest copper engravings of which date from 1681 and the first edition of Filippo Bonanni's (1638–1725) "Ricreatione dell' Occhio e della Mente nell' Osservatione delle Chiocciole" (Rome 1681) – the first monograph on shells and molluscs. Filippo Bonanni (1638–1725) was a Jesuit who studied under Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680, German scientist and member of the Jesuit order), and succeeded him as curator of the cabinet of curiosities at the Collegio Romano. It is most likely that many of the shells depicted in his important work of 1681 were drawn from the collections at the Collegio Romano. A further large number of beautifully hand-coloured engravings come from Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm Martini's (1729–1778) "Neues systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet", first published in Nuremberg in 1769 (Vol. I–III), the publication of which was continued after Martini's death by Johan Hieronymus Chemnitz (1730–1800).
Ornithologists can revel in an abundance of material, with the illustrations from Johann Michael Seligmann's (1720–1762) "Sammlung verschiedener ausländischer und seltener Vögel…" (Nuremberg 1749–1776) standing out in particular, as do the rarely encountered hand-coloured lithographs from Georg August Goldfuss's (1782–1848) "Naturhistorischer Atlas…" (Düsseldorf, 1824–43).
For the equestrian enthusiast, there is a complete copy of the German-French edition of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle (1593–1676), "Des Welt-berühmten Hertzog Wilhelms von Newcastle Neueröffnete Reit-Bahn…" (1700). The book once belonged to Lieutenant Carl Arvid Cleasson Råmb (1722–1759) and bears his handsome bookplate executed by Olof Jacobsson Årre (1731–1809).
Among the later literature from the 19th century, a beautiful work on butterflies stands out – J. C. Kayser's "Deutschlands Schmetterlinge mit Berücksichtigung sämtlicher Europäischer Arten", Leipzig (1852–1859), in two volumes. The work contains 153 engraved illustrations, of which 152 are hand-coloured. The provenance is the estate owner and book collector Carl Fredrik Mörck's (1809–1864) library at Rosendala, Huskvarna, and also bears a rare dedication from the collector: "Till Akad. Tösens Bibl. af C. F. Mörck."
Message Andreas Siesing