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Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Elegant Antique Hand-Colored Botanical Fern Print, Anemia fulva, 1806-1809
€210 ($235, £175, €210)
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. Handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Botanical
- Reference
- BG-14438-188
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.
Anemia fulva is the subject of this original antique copper engraving, hand-colored, plate 142 from Christian Schkuhr's account of the ferns, club mosses and horsetails published at Wittenberg from 1806 to 1809. Anemia carries its spores on two erect branches that stand clear of the leafy part of the frond. The sheet carries 2 species, lettered Anemia fulva and Anemia deltoidea beneath the figures, with the plate number 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.
Printed from a copper plate and colored by hand when it was published, the sheet shows the qualities that separate original hand coloring from printed color: the wash crosses the engraved line in places, the strength of the green changes across the frond, and the fine work on the spore cases is picked out in a browner tone over the engraving. The plate mark is visible in the paper. 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. Handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
