WHY I COLLECT Nature Prints

From perfectly pressed seaweed to meteorite patterns and flat bats, publisher and rare book dealer Matthew Zucker shares his love of nature prints - the beautiful, the botanical and the bizarre

- ELLIE TENNANT

"My passion for nature prints was ignited in 2003 when Christie's London held a sale to auction off books and manuscripts from the library of the 17th Earl of Perth. I spotted an 1839 book of 430 seaweed specimens and I was just amazed by it. It led me down the road to acquiring everything I could get my hands on.

I've always been interested in how things are made and the blend between craftsmen and artists. In nature printing, everything is a one-to-one copy. I was working with my grandfather, who had been a rare book dealer since 1940, so I began to hunt for nature prints at book fairs. Today, my collection is the most extensive ever assembled, with more than 13,000 images across 130 rare and seminal works from 1733 to 1902, including journals, books, manuscripts, American currency and instructional texts related to nature printing. Everything has to be stored carefully in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment, away from direct sunlight or heat.