Antique Natural HistoryOriginal plates from the naturalists' books, 1600s to 1900s
Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875
Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, view 2
Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, view 3
Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, view 4
Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, view 5
Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, view 6

Close-ups

Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, close-up 1

Framed and on the wall

Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, shown framedFloral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, shown framed on a wallFloral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875, shown framed in a room

Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.

Floral Collection: Coral Drops, Prairie Gentian, Monkey Orchid, Bellflower, 1875

€380 ($425, £320, €380)

Period original, not a reproduction.

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Date
1875
Size
9.8 × 6.4 in (25 × 16.3 cm)
Condition
Good. Given age. General age-related toning and/or occasional minor defects from handling. Colors are vivid. Please study scan carefully.
Period
Late 19th century
Section
Fish and shells
Reference
f_41439592

Four botanical plates from Louis Van Houtte's Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe, 1875, original color lithographs of Latin American flowering plants. Each plate is lettered with its plant name: Bessera miniata, Lisianthus princeps, Masdevallia elephanticeps and Ceratostema grandiflorum.

The first plate shows Bessera, the coral drops of Mexico, a slender arching stem bearing a loose umbel of drooping red and white blooms, with the small bulb drawn at the base. The second shows Lisianthus princeps, a tubular flower shading from rose-pink to yellow with a tuft of green leaves, set beside small pencil studies of its parts. The third is the orchid Masdevallia elephanticeps, whose long yellow and purple-brown sepals curl upward and outward from tall stems. The fourth is Ceratostema grandiflorum, a shrubby twig hung with orange-red tubular flowers and small oval leaves. Each colored plant is accompanied by fine outline dissections of the flower in the margin, as in a working botanical record.

Van Houtte issued the Flore des Serres from his nursery at Ghent, and its plates introduced European growers to newly imported exotics from the tropics, here drawn from Mexico and the Andes.