Designed, printed and bound by Rhiannon Alpers
2018
Edition of 40
9.5 x 8.75" closed; 8 sections
Deluxe box available

When Jeanne Baret stepped on-board the Etoile ship in 1766, she didn’t set out to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Alongside her colleague, accomplice and lover, Philibert Commerson, she took on many roles during the expedition as a botanist, herb woman, nurse, and cataloger of the more than 630 specimens they brought aboard.

This limited edition artist book traces the expedition of the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, through the lens of the botanical discoveries she made along the ship’s journey. Jeanne Baret was not able to document the expedition herself, due to the forbidden nature of her passage on this journey, but her legacy has inspired many and spurred the creation of this book.

Removable magnetic spine binding opens completely back-to-back, with digitally produced specimen chart hidden within. Hahnemuhle Bugra Fawn folio maps letterpress printed from polymer plates, adapted from French expedition maps from the published logs “Voyage Autour du Monde par la Frégate du rio la Boudeuse et la Fluté L’Etoile,” with thanks to the Internet Archive for their digital copy of the book. Crane’s Lettra Ecru 90lb specimen folios letterpress printed from linoleum blocks and polymer plates. Plant outlines laser cut and secured with Japanese tissue. Laser-cut specimens were adapted from the original plant specimens collected by Commerson and Baret on the expedition, archived in the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Interleaved vellum sheets with macro photography by the artist laser printed on Neenah UV Ultra II. Spine bound with Gmund Bier Paper Accordion (made with brewer's spent grain).

Many thanks to Glynis Ridley for her inspiration and kindness in allowing the inclusion of excerpts from The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe by Glynis Ridley, copyright © 2010. Used by permission of Crown Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All Rights Reserved.