Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Decorative 19th Century Hand-Colored Fern Engraving, Holly Fern, 1806-1809
€190 ($210, £160, €190)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat or rolled, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1806-1809
- Size
- 9.4 × 7.9 in (24 × 20 cm)
- Technique
- Copper Engraving
- Coloring
- Original hand color
- Condition
- Good. Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the left, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left and bottom right corners.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Botanical
- Reference
- BG-14438-48
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
The Holly Fern is the subject of this original antique copper engraving, hand-colored, plate 29 from Christian Schkuhr's account of the ferns, club mosses and horsetails published at Wittenberg from 1806 to 1809. Aspidium is Schkuhr's name for the shield ferns, the group that later botanists split into Dryopteris, Polystichum and their relatives. The sheet is lettered Aspidium Lonchitis beneath the figure, in the engraved script Schkuhr used throughout the work, and the plate number is engraved at the upper right. Beside the habit drawing Schkuhr adds the small lettered analyses he is known for, the spore cases, the scales and the sections that make the plate useful to a botanist as well as pleasant to look at.
Schkuhr published this work himself at Wittenberg, in nine instalments between 1806 and 1809, as the fern volume of his treatment of the cryptogams. He drew, engraved and colored the plates, which is unusual: most botanical authors of the period handed their drawings to a professional engraver and a coloring workshop. The volume carries 221 plates numbered to 173 with lettered supplements, and is listed at Pritzel 8205.
This is an engraving on copper with original hand coloring, printed on the bluish paper that the first impressions of the work were issued on. The engraved line carries the structure and the watercolor carries the color, applied by hand so that no two copies of the plate are quite alike. The plate is decorative as well as scientific. Early botanical engravings of ferns have been a staple of interior decoration since the Victorian fern craze, and an original sheet of this date, hand-colored and engraved by the botanist himself, carries considerably more weight than the later reproductions that fill the market.
Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the left, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left and bottom right corners.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
