Common Sorrel and Spurge Laurel, Antique Wild Plant Print, Pratt, circa 1873

Printed in color in London for Frederick Warne and Co., this original antique plate from Anne Pratt's British flora shows the common sorrel and sheep's sorrel with the mountain sorrel and the spurge laurel. Airy panicles of small crimson and rose flowers rise through the upper half of the sheet, the color of a sorrel field in early summer, carried on slender reddish stems. The round kidney shaped leaves of the mountain sorrel spread at the lower left, and the dark evergreen leaves and green flowers of the spurge laurel fill the center and spread to the right.

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, born at Strood in Kent in 1806 and self taught as a botanist, was among the best known botanical illustrators in Victorian England. Her books were accurate enough to be used and plain enough to be read, and this flora stayed a standard household reference for decades. Her drawings outlived her by a long way: the fern plates from this very work were still being reused, reduced and unattributed, in pocket guides well into the twentieth century.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. Slight wear at the bottom right and top right corners.

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