The Book of Marble. Jan Christiaan Sepp

An exhaustive compendium of marble, Afbeelding der Marmor Soorten (A Representation of Marble Types) depicted 570 samples across 100 colour plates, accompanied by texts in five languages. Published in 1776 at the peak of the Enlightenment, it is regarded, rightly, as one of the finest illustrated scientific books of the era. Over the course of the 18th century, beautiful books that categorised, annotated, and illuminated the Enlightenment pursuit of learning across Europe had become increasingly popular. Knowledge was everything and everywhere, and these books provided it for those not wealthy enough to build their own personal collections of rare and exotic objects. Marmor Soorten, one such edition, took the standards of both aesthetics and categorisation to a whole new level. Jan Christiaan Sepp and his father Christian – himself a respected collector – had already earned a reputation for luxury publications on scientific themes, starting with Christian’s own Nederlandsche Insecten (Insects of the Netherlands).