Decorative 19th Century Hand-Colored Fern Print, Grammitis lanceolata, 1806-1809

An original antique botanical engraving of Grammitis lanceolata, hand-colored on bluish paper, plate 7 from Christian Schkuhr's study of the ferns and their allies, Wittenberg, 1806 to 1809. Grammitis gathers small simple-fronded ferns with the spore cases in straight lines. The sheet carries 5 species, lettered Grammitis linearis, Grammitis myosuroides, Grammitis marginella, Grammitis lanceolata and Grammitis serrulata beneath the figures, with the plate number engraved at the upper right. Beside the habit drawing Schkuhr adds the small lettered analyses he is known for, the spore cases, the scales and the sections that make the plate useful to a botanist as well as pleasant to look at.

Christian Schkuhr, 1741 to 1811, is one of the few botanical authors who was also his own artist, engraver and publisher. He came to botany from gardening, settled at Wittenberg, and devoted himself to the Linnaean system. This sheet belongs to his volume on the ferns and their allies, published at Wittenberg in nine instalments between 1806 and 1809, with 221 copper plates in all. The numbering runs to 173, with supplementary lettered plates inserted where he had more to show than one sheet would hold.

The sheet is a copper engraving finished in watercolor by hand, and the coloring is original to the period of publication. The wash sits over the engraved outline and varies from figure to figure in the way hand work does, with the greens laid in several strengths to separate the upper and lower surfaces of the frond. The paper carries the plate mark of the copper plate. A plate of this kind is easy to live with. The green against the warm paper is quiet, the drawing is precise, and the sheet works alone above a desk or in a run of three or four down a hallway. Collectors of botanical art, of early natural history illustration and of German copperplate work all look for Schkuhr's sheets.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Handling soiling along the left and right edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the left.

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