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Also published in a limited edition of 25 copies, in a deluxe clamshell box, with an original 14 x 11 inch matt-surface gelatin silver print (print edition of 25 numbered and signed by van Dongen). - From the Introduction by Carolyn Quartermaine: "I think of slender Japanese bowls, porcelain pinched to ultimate thinness, unbearably fragile. The purest shapes, drawn, pushed, picked by the artist's hands, and then isolated, edited down. This elegant poise is remarkably captured in the tulip "Blushing Beauty." The softness frozen in time tricks those who think it may not break into thousands of pieces. The magnolias are carved from thick wax: heavy, scented, floating, laden, and glowing. They are the corsage dressing the light box, invited to the modernist party, pulling you in, innocently tempting you to open the petals, or cup the shape in your hands, stroking the blush colour strained into the form."

First printing 1999. - Limited edition of 25 copies 2002, in a deluxe clamshell box, with an original 14 x 11 inch matt-surface gelatin silver print (print edition of 25 numbered and signed by van Dongen). - From the publisher: "The first edition of Alba Nero sold out upon publication in 1999, and we are delighted to announce this timely reprint of Ron van Dongen's first monograph of large-scale floral still lifes. Alba Nero presents thirty of van Dongen's powerful and exquisite images, beautifully printed in duotone in an oversized 14 x 17 inches hardcover format. In his formally seductive series of botanical studies, van Dongen unearths floral secrets and prickly symbols of our alternately nurturing and perilous relationship with nature. He shows us flowers as resourceful and delicate, decorative and essential, sacred and sensual, life force and death knell - and always suggestive of all that is beyond our tethered reach. Plucked from their backyard habitat and brought indoors, these dazzling arums, anemones and papavers are isolated or paired for the camera as emblems of a postmodern struggle between nature's vagabond wilderness and culture's manipulation of its blithe freedom. Van Dongen's work has been widely shown in the US and abroad, and is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston."

This first edition was limited to 2000 case-bound copies. There is also a limited edition of 25 copies, in a deluxe clamshell box, with an original 14 x 11 inch matt-surface gelatin silver print, "Rosa 'Ophelia' II, 1999," which is reproduced in the fourth plate of the book (print edition of 25 numbered and signed by van Dongen; ISBN 3923922868). - From the publisher: "Vulgaris, our second monograph on Dutch photographer Ron van Dongen, contains a stunning new selection of botanical still lives, and confirms van Dongen’s position as the most innovative and exciting artist working in the genre today. By blending aspects of classical technique with an unmistakably modern approach to subject matter, van Dongen has cultivated a unique contribution to the longstanding tradition of still-life floral studies."