Antique Print of Five British Gentians, Blue Alpine Flowers, circa 1873

An original antique botanical plate of the British flora, printed in color in London for Frederick Warne and Co., this sheet is given over to five British gentians, among them the marsh gentian and the spring gentian. A deep blue trumpet of Gentiana pneumonanthe stands at the top of the sheet and the small blue star of the small alpine gentian opens at the lower left, with the larger blue star of the spring gentian at the right. Between them rise massed heads of the lilac and dusty pink field and small flowered gentians, drawn with their pointed lance shaped leaves and set against the cream paper.

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.

What makes Pratt's plates worth hanging is her method. Each species is given whole, with root, stem, leaf, flower and often the ripe fruit on the same sheet, and several related species are grouped together so that the differences between them can be read at a glance. The result is a composition rather than a specimen sheet, and it reads as a picture at a distance and as botany close up.

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

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