Alkanet, Bugloss and Comfrey, Antique Blue Wild Flower Plate, circa 1873

Printed in color in London for Frederick Warne and Co., this original antique plate from Anne Pratt's British flora shows the two alkanets, the small bugloss and the two British comfreys. Deep blue flowers of the common alkanet, Anchusa officinalis, open at the left against rough hairy leaves, with the larger pale blue flowers of Anchusa sempervirens beside them. Cream and pale yellow bells of Symphytum hang in a drooping cluster at the lower right, and the thick ridged stems and long tapering leaves of the comfreys carry the eye down the sheet.

Anne Pratt brought out The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain through Frederick Warne and Co. of Bedford Street, Covent Garden, in six volumes covering more than fifteen hundred species. The plates were printed in color by William Dickes of London, a licensee of the Baxter color process, and this sheet comes from Volume IV, which the title page records as carrying 249 species in color.

Anne Pratt, 1806 to 1893, wrote more than twenty books on plants and birds and received little critical attention in her own lifetime, which later writers have put down to the Victorian reluctance to take a self taught woman seriously as a scientist. Her books nonetheless sold in very large numbers, and her plates are now the most familiar images of the British wild flora produced in that century.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left, bottom right and top left corners.

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