Mahogany Tree and Logwood, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1805

This antique botanical print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows the mahogany tree and logwood, two West Indian trees prized in Europe for cabinet wood and dye. The heading reads Pflanzen VI, one of the first plant plates of the Bilderbuch, and the lower margin carries the Vienna mark I.B.45.

Figure 1 is a branch of mahogany with pinnate leaves and a large five part seed capsule split open to show its winged seeds, with a small spray of flowers engraved beside it. Figure 2 is believed to be logwood, Haematoxylum campechianum, recognisable by its small heart shaped leaflets, clusters of pale flowers with long stamens and flat pointed pods. Mahogany furnished the fine furniture of the eighteenth century, and logwood gave the black and purple dyes used for cloth and ink, so the plate joins two of the most important colonial timbers of the age.

Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747 to 1822) began his Bilderbuch fuer Kinder in Weimar in 1790 as a picture encyclopaedia for young readers, and over four decades it grew to almost 1,200 plates on plants, animals, peoples, antiquities and the sciences. Its success led to other editions, and this sheet comes from the Vienna edition published by Anton Pichler as the Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend, with text in German and French. The Vienna plates were newly engraved after the Weimar originals, keep the Weimar subject numbering in a heading in German, Latin and French, and carry a volume and plate number in the lower margin, here the mark I.B.45. Vienna volume I follows Weimar volume I, which appeared in 1790 to 1792, so this plate was published no earlier than that. The initials J.X.S. engraved in the right margin are those of Jacob Xaver Schmuzer, the Viennese engraver who signed many plates of this edition. The plate is a copper engraving with original hand color, as the Vienna volumes were issued colored.

A plate like this suits a kitchen, study or garden room, and it hangs well in a group with other Bertuch botanical sheets of the same size. For a collector it is also a neat example of how the Bilderbuch traveled beyond Weimar in the years around 1800.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with toning, show through of the verso text and small nicks along the right edge; the image is clean.

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