Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look; the description says what is included.
Sea Life by Merculiano, Pair of Antique Meyers Plates, circa 1910
£105 ($140, €125)
Period original, not a reproduction.
Shipped from the Netherlands, flat or rolled, insured and tracked, worldwide. Returns accepted within 14 days.
- Date
- 1906-1912
- Size
- 6.3 × 9.6 in (16 × 24.5 cm)
- Technique
- Chromolithograph
- Coloring
- Printed color
- Condition
- Good. Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the edges of one of the two sheets. Scattered foxing in the margins of one of the two sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.
- Period
- 20th century
- Section
- Fish and shells
- Reference
- BG-12952-46
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.
A set of two original antique chromolithographed plates from Meyers Grosses Konversations-Lexikon. They are two original sheets sold together, and the set is never split. The two plates are Marine and terrestrial worms on a seabed and shore, in a wide panoramic strip; Marine larval and adult forms, flatfish, crustaceans, a crinoid, a ray and a shark. Each was printed in color by the Bibliographisches Institut in Leipzig and Vienna between 1906 and 1912.
Both come from Meyers Grosses Konversations-Lexikon, the sixth edition of the great German encyclopedia, published in Leipzig and Vienna by the Bibliographisches Institut between 1906 and 1912, and each was bound in beside the article it illustrates. They share the format, typeface and palette of that edition, which is why they belong together. The sixth edition ran to more than twenty volumes and several hundred plates, and the colored plates were the showpiece of the whole undertaking. The Bibliographisches Institut ran one of the largest lithographic works in Europe, with its own draftsmen and its own color presses, and printed each plate from a separate stone for every color.
A set like this reads as a deliberate collection rather than as a decorative accident. The sheets share a palette and a typeface; they differ in size or orientation, so each is framed to its own sheet. The modest size suits a simple frame with a wide mat, and a pair or a run of three works particularly well in a study, a kitchen, a consulting room, a hallway or a narrow wall where one large print would be too much.
Light uneven toning, browner toward the edges. Handling soiling along the edges of one of the two sheets. Scattered foxing in the margins of one of the two sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.
These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. This item is sold unframed.
