Mushrooms from Jacquin’s Collectaneorum Supplementum
Two elegant late 18th Century copperplate engravings of the Polyporus tuberaster mushroom or stone fungus, showing the same mushroom from the top (Tab 8) and from below (Tab 9), classed as a Boletus under Linnaean-era taxonomy. The species is edible, but very tough unless young and well-cooked. The images were based on a specimen which Von Jacquin’s son brought to Vienna from Naples.
Each print is beautifully hand-colored in rich golden tones and engraved on chainlinked paper bearing a watermark (Fleur de Lys)
Dimensions: Around 9.5 X 12
The engravings are not framed.
This rare series of hand-colored engravings comes from Collectaneorum Supplementum cum figuris coloratis, published in Vienna in 1797 by the Austrian naturalist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. The work contains a small group of finely engraved and delicately colored plates illustrating botanical and mycological subjects observed and described by Jacquin in the late eighteenth century.
The plates are notable for their clarity and scientific precision. Each subject is presented in isolation against a clean background, often accompanied by analytical details such as magnified sections, host leaves, or growth substrates. The coloring, applied by hand at the time of publication, enhances structural features while retaining the restrained elegance typical of Viennese scientific illustration of the period.
Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727–1817) was one of the most important naturalists of the Habsburg Enlightenment. Born in Leiden and educated in medicine and botany, he was invited to Vienna by Emperor Francis I. Jacquin undertook expeditions to the Caribbean and Central America in the 1750s, collecting plants and animals for the imperial collections at Schönbrunn Palace. He later became professor of botany and chemistry at the University of Vienna and director of the imperial gardens. Over his long career, he published numerous influential works that helped shape modern botanical and mycological study.
Collectaneorum Supplementum represents Jacquin’s continued commitment to careful observation and publication of new or little-known species. The plates reflect the transitional period of eighteenth-century taxonomy, when fungi and plants were still being organized within broad Linnaean categories that would later be refined by nineteenth-century systematists.
Today, engravings from this work are appreciated both for their scientific importance and for their understated aesthetic appeal. Their combination of Enlightenment scholarship, precise line engraving, and subtle hand coloring makes them highly suitable for collectors of early natural history prints and for interiors that favor classical botanical imagery with historical depth.
Below: Full Sheets and texts from the book
Translation of the Latin text from page 160 of Collectaneorum supplementum describing the image above:
“In this plate I have had depicted what may perhaps be a new species of Boletus: first as it arises, then as it begins to expand in youth, and finally in full maturity.
It is that celebrated Boletus of which Micheli makes mention under the title Pietra Fungaia. [Note: Pietra Fungaia refers to the famous “fungus stone” from Naples — a block of compacted soil from which edible boletes were cultivated – one of the earliest ways of cultivating mushrooms]
My son, returning from the Kingdom of Naples, brought to Vienna the matrix (substrate) of this fungus, exceeding twice the size of a human head. It was a compact and coherent mass of humus, yet smooth, entirely permeated with a whitish, fungus-like substance, easily cut with a knife, and burdened with no stone embedded in it.
Placed in a warm room during the winter, and sprinkled the following spring with a little water, it produced several fungi of the same kind as those which grow in the Kingdom of Naples.
They lack a volva.
The cap above is somewhat dingy yellowish in its epidermis, here and there separating in small scales, as happens in many fungi. The flesh is white and tender. Beneath, it is densely perforated with pores.”
Translation of the Latin text from page 160 of Collectaneorum supplementum describing the image above:
TAB. 9.
Fig. 1. The earlier fungus, viewed from below, with a fragment of its matrix.
Fig. 2. A leaf of the balsam poplar on its upper side, which is seen to be covered with innumerable very small parasitic Lycoperdon-like growths, piercing through the leaves.
Fig. 3. A portion of this leaf enlarged (viewed under magnification).
Note: The engravings are unframed. The image below is a digital mockup.
Original Latin Texts for these plates (tables)
TAB. 8.
In hac tabula depingi curavi Boleti novam forte speciem, primo qualis nascitur, dein prouti adolescens expandi incipit, tandem in aetate adulta. Est celeber ille Boletus, cujus mentionem facit Michelius sub titulo Pietra Fungaia. Filius meus ex regno Neapolitano redux matricem hujus fungi Viennam attulit, bis caput humanum superantem. Erat humus compacta & cohaerens, levis tamen, tota quanta percurfa a materia albida fungiformi, cultro facile scindi potens, nec ullo lapide immisto onerata. Hyeme in tepidario locata, proximo vere adspersa aqua aliquoties irrorata produxit plusculos fungos, eosdem, quos in regno Neapolitano solet. Volva carent. Pileus superne sordide flavescens epidermide gaudet hic illic squamatim secedente, uti fit hoc in pluribus fungis. Caro alba & tenera est, subtus poris dense pertunditur.
TAB. 9.
Fig. 1. Prior fungus, subtus conspectus, cum matricis frustulo.
Fig. 2. Folium Populi balsamiferae in parte supina, quae obsidetur innumeris Lycoperdis minutissimis & parasiticis, folia perfundentibus.
Fig. 3. Pars hujus folii ad lentem aucta.
