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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 Fern Print, Acrostichum quercifolium, 1806-1809
£160 ($210, €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 and right edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right corner. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the right.
- Period
- Early 19th century
- Section
- Botanical
- Reference
- BG-14438-4
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.
This hand-colored antique copper engraving shows Acrostichum quercifolium, and is plate 3 from the fern volume of Christian Schkuhr's cryptogamic flora, Wittenberg, 1806 to 1809. The leather ferns are the thick, simple-fronded ferns of warm coasts and mangrove swamps. The sheet carries 2 species, lettered Acrostichum quercifolium and Acrostichum trifoliatum 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.
The sheet is a copper engraving finished in watercolor by hand, and the coloring is original to the period of publication. The wash sits over the engraved outline and varies from figure to figure in the way hand work does, with the greens laid in several strengths to separate the upper and lower surfaces of the frond. The paper carries the plate mark of the copper plate. 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 and right edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right corner. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the right.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
