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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.
Hand-Colored Fern Engraving by Schkuhr, Acrostichum bifurcatum, 1806-1809
£175 ($235, €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. Marked handling soiling along the bottom 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-14438-3
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.
Acrostichum bifurcatum is the subject of this original antique copper engraving, hand-colored, plate 2 from Christian Schkuhr's account of the ferns, club mosses and horsetails published at Wittenberg from 1806 to 1809. The leather ferns are the thick, simple-fronded ferns of warm coasts and mangrove swamps. The sheet carries 3 species, lettered Acrostichum bifurcatum, Acrostichum alcicorne and Lonchitis hirsuta 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.
This is one of the 221 copper plates of Christian Schkuhr's volume on the cryptogamic plants, the ferns, club mosses, horsetails and water ferns that stand as the twenty-fourth class of the Linnaean system. Schkuhr drew the plants, cut the plates and published the work himself at Wittenberg, issuing it in nine parts between 1806 and 1809. The bibliography records it at Pritzel 8205, and the first impressions were printed on bluish paper, as this sheet is.
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. Hung singly the plate makes a calm, graphic statement; grouped with others from the same volume it makes a wall. The uniform sheet size and the shared palette mean these plates frame and group easily, which is how most buyers use them, in a study, a bedroom, a garden room or a professional office.
Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the bottom 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.
