Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Arecoideae Palm Trees in Serra dos Órgãos, Brazil, circa 1861
$145 (£110, €130)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1861
- Size
- 13.2 × 9.6 in (33.5 × 24.5 cm)
- Condition
- Good, given age. Some light staining in margins, not affecting image. General age-related toning and/or occasional minor defects from handling. Folding line as issued. Please study scan carefully.
- Period
- Late 19th century
- Artist or book
- Louis van Houtte
- Section
- Botanical
- Reference
- f_41339152
Oil palms in the Serra dos Órgãos mountains of Brazil, a large chromolithograph dated about 1861 and lettered "L'Elaeis guineensis dans les montagnes des Orgues (Serra dos Orgaos) au Brésil". The imprint names Louis van Houtte of Ghent.
A tall palm stands at the left with feathery fronds and a bunch of fruit, and a dark leafy shrub grows at its foot. In the middle distance a rough thatched hut with an open frame stands beside a dirt track, where a man in a blue shirt and hat leads a mule, with two more pack mules grazing near the house. Behind rise the bare, craggy peaks of the Serra dos Órgãos, pink and orange in the light of a yellow sky, with banks of clouds above and wooded slopes below.
The sheet is a landscape in which the palm is the botanical subject, and it combines the exactness of a plant plate with the setting of a view. Van Houtte, a Belgian horticulturist and nurseryman, had himself traveled in Brazil in his early career.
