Manna Ash and Sarsaparilla Medicinal Plants, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This antique botanical print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows two medicinal plants of the old apothecary, the manna ash and sarsaparilla. The heading reads Pflanzen LXXXV and the plate carries the Vienna mark VIII.B.3 in the lower margin.

Figure 1 is read as the manna ash, Fraxinus ornus, a branch with toothed pinnate leaves and dense sprays of creamy flowers, with a lump of the sweet dried sap, called manna, drawn at the foot as item a. Figure 2 is a sarsaparilla, Smilax, with a prickly climbing stem, broad heart shaped leaves with curved veins, clusters of dark berries, a flowering shoot and the long root used in medicine. Both drugs were imported in quantity around 1800, manna from Calabria and Sicily and sarsaparilla from Central and South America, and the plate shows children the living plants behind the jars on the apothecary shelf.

Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747 to 1822) began his Bilderbuch fuer Kinder in Weimar in 1790 as a picture encyclopaedia for young readers, and over four decades it grew to almost 1,200 plates on plants, animals, peoples, antiquities and the sciences. Its success led to other editions, and this sheet comes from the Vienna edition published by Anton Pichler as the Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend, with text in German and French. The Vienna plates were newly engraved after the Weimar originals, keep the Weimar subject numbering in a heading in German, Latin and French, and carry a volume and plate number in the lower margin, here the mark VIII.B.3. Vienna volume VIII follows Weimar volume IV, which appeared in 1802, so this plate was published no earlier than that. The plate is a copper engraving with original hand colour, as the Vienna volumes were issued coloured.

A plate like this suits a kitchen, study or garden room, and it hangs well in a group with other Bertuch botanical sheets of the same size. For a collector it is also a neat example of how the Bilderbuch travelled beyond Weimar in the years around 1800.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light toning and a stain in the left margin; the image itself is clean and the colour fresh.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.