Jan Christian Sepp: The Book of Marble

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.

Published in 1776 at the peak of the Enlightenment, A Representation of Marble Types was one such edition: it depicted 570 samples across 100 colour plates, accompanied by texts in five languages and took the standards of both aesthetics and categorisation to a whole new level. Today, it is regarded, rightly, as one of the finest illustrated scientific books of the era.

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 Insects of the Netherlands. But it was his son who created the visual masterpiece A Representation of Marble Types, revising an existing German publication from 1775 by Adam Ludwig Wirsing. The result – published in 11 instalments to a print run of around 100 – was among the finest examples of its kind.

Featuring new photography to depict the intricate details of the marble samples, this edition brings an unknown treasure back to relevance. The plates, each meticulously hand-coloured and arranged with painstaking precision, have an abstract-art feel that gives this volume an almost modern slant.

This edition reproduces the pages from two copies of A Representation of Marble Types held at the State and University Library in Dresden and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. Reprinting the work in full for the first time, The Book of Marble brings that rare blend of beauty and encyclopaedic knowledge to a wider audience.