A Single Ripe Peach, Knoop's Persik, Dutch Fruit Engraving, 1790

An original hand-colored copper engraving of a single ripe peach, lettered in engraved script with its Dutch name, "Persik.", and numbered "TAB. V" at the head of the sheet. One fruit only, shown large on a short leafy branch, hangs with its cleft turned toward the viewer. The original watercolor is at its best in this sheet: a soft gold ground brushed over the engraved stipple, then a carmine blush worked wet into it across the upper cheek so that the two colors meet without a hard edge, which is something printed color cannot do. The long lance-shaped peach leaves curve away on either side in a green that cools to blue in shadow. In places the wash laps over the engraved outline, as original hand coloring does.

This sheet was published at Amsterdam and Dordrecht in 1790 by Allart, Holtrop, de Leeuw and Krap, in Johann Hermann Knoop's description and figures of the best sorts of apples and pears, introduced by Johannes Florentius Martinet. Knoop had charge of the Mariënburg garden at Leeuwarden and knew his fruit as a working gardener rather than a compiler, which is why his plates are still consulted on old Dutch varieties. Each is a copper engraving finished by hand in watercolor, the washes sitting over the engraved line and varying in strength from fruit to fruit as only hand color does.

Of all the sheets in the volume this is the one that works purely as a picture. A peach was a glasshouse fruit in the eighteenth-century Netherlands, grown by gardeners with warm walls and money, and Knoop, gardener at the Mariënburg garden in Leeuwarden, drew it from the living fruit as he drew everything else here. The third series of plates carries no engraver's credit, so the sheet stands under Knoop's name alone. Framed on its own and hung at eye level, the single peach has the quiet confidence of a small still life, and it is the obvious choice for a buyer who wants one fruit plate rather than a group.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

This is an original antique plate, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.