The plates of Maclise's surgical anatomy with the descriptions ed by R Piper. Colored plates printed by the Baxter process

Boston: Jewett, 1857. p>[Baxter, George (1804-67).] The plates of Maclise's Surgical Anatomy, with the descriptions . . . With an additional plate from Bourgery . . . Printed in oil colors, after Baxter's process. Edited by Richard Upton Piper (1816-97). 36 plates, each with printed key, plus 3 preliminary leaves. Boston: John Jewett and Co.; Cleveland: Henry P. B. Jewett, 1857. 248 x 197 mm. Original cloth, rebacked. Old library stamp removed from title, but a very good copy with very clean impressions of all the plates.

First Edition of the first (and possibly only) surgical plates printed using George Baxter's oil color printing technique, the first commercially viable color printing process. The process, patented in 1835, combined intaglio and relief methods, involving "the coloring of an impression from an outline or key block, which could be either a copper, zinc or steel plate, or a litho stone—though the latter was but seldom used—by successive impressions from color blocks of wood or metal, one for each tint used" (Burch, p. 126). Unlike chromolithography that printed from soft lithographic stones which could not tolerate a large number of impressions without reworking, Baxter's blocks could withstand very large numbers of impressions, and could reproduce very small detail not readily possible with stone lithography. Baxter's process was often used by Baxter and licensees of his process, for very large runs of color prints.

The plates in the present book were printed in the United States by John O'Neil at the firm of Charles H. Crosby. In his "Editor's Preface," Piper, who was both a physician and an artist, emphasized the innovative nature of the illustrations, without crediting Baxter, whose English patent was undoubtedly ignored in this production: "This is the first attempt, we believe, to give a series of scientific plates executed in this manner; and that they have therefore, during the progress of the work, been submitted to many of our most prominent scientific men, among whom may be mentioned Profs. Haywood, H. G. Bigelow, Agassiz, etc., etc., and have met with warm approval" (p. [iii]). The plates were mostly reproduced from Joseph Maclise's Surgical Anatomy (1851), with an additional plate from Bourgery and Jacob's Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme (1831-54). Burch, Colour Printing and Colour Printers, pp. 125-131.

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