Set of 3 Antique Chromolithographs of Alpine and Rock Ferns, circa 1885

A set of three original antique chromolithographs of woodsias, bladder ferns and the parsley fern from James Britten's European Ferns, published in London by Cassell, circa 1885, and sold together as one set of three sheets. Plate 3 shows three small mountain woodsias, Woodsia glabella, Woodsia ilvensis and Woodsia hyperborea, rooted in the cracks of a tilted gray rock face, with a bright yellow lichen picked out at the left. Enlarged pinnae of each species, labeled W. Glabella, W. Ilvensis and W. Hyperborea, run along the top of the sheet. Plate 7 shows four bladder ferns, Cystopteris fragilis, Cystopteris sudetica, Cystopteris montana and Cystopteris alpina, each drawn whole with its rootstock, the fronds ranging from pale yellow green to deep green across the sheet. An enlarged fruiting pinnule of each sits in the corners. Plate 12 shows the parsley fern, Cryptogramma crispa, growing from between gray mountain boulders, its crisped, parsley like barren fronds spreading at the base and the taller fertile fronds turning rust and gold above. A barren segment and a fertile segment are enlarged in the upper corners.

Published in London by Cassell, European Ferns was the work of the botanist James Britten, 1846 to 1924, of the British Museum, with thirty plates drawn from living plants by David Blair. The parts first came out between 1879 and 1881; this copy bears the Cassell and Company, Limited imprint used from 1883 onward, so it is a later issue of circa 1885. Unlike most fern books of the period, which kept to the British flora, Britten's covers species from Madeira to Scandinavia and the Caucasus. The plates were printed in color by Vincent Brooks, Day and Son of London, one of the foremost chromolithographic printers of Victorian England, and the lithographers' credit appears at the lower right of the image. The color is printed throughout, built up from separate stones, not applied by hand.

All three sheets show small mountain ferns drawn whole with their roots among gray rocks, in the same soft greens, so they hang naturally as a group. Fern collecting was a national passion in Victorian Britain, a craze contemporaries called pteridomania, and books like this one supplied the accurate pictures that collectors used to name the plants in their ferneries and glass cases. For a collector of botanical prints they are an easy way to add a whole group from one named Victorian book.

Even age toning throughout. Handling soiling along the edges of two of the three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of all three sheets.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are three original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split. This item is sold unframed.