Oak Fern and Common Polypody, Pair of Antique Fern Prints, circa 1885

A set of two original antique chromolithographs of the oak fern, common polypody and beech fern from James Britten's European Ferns, published in London by Cassell, circa 1885, and sold together as one set of two sheets. Plate 23 shows the oak fern, Polypodium dryopteris, and the limestone fern, Polypodium robertianum, rising on tall thin stalks from a bare mossy hillside, their triangular fronds held almost flat and a young frond unrolling at the left. Five numbered details, one enlarged seven and a half times, show the spore heaps. Plate 24 shows the common polypody, Polypodium vulgare, on its scaly creeping rhizome, with the round orange spore heaps lined up on the underside of its fronds, beside the softer, downy beech fern, Polypodium phegopteris. Three numbered pinnae, one enlarged four times, stand at the foot.

European Ferns was written by James Britten of the Department of Botany at the British Museum, and the title page promises colored illustrations from nature by D. Blair, Fellow of the Linnean Society. The work first appeared in parts from 1879 to 1881. This sheet belongs to a copy issued under the later imprint Cassell and Company, Limited, which the publisher used from 1883, and it is dated here circa 1885. Each plate carries the running head Cassell's European Ferns at the upper left. The plates were printed in color by Vincent Brooks, Day and Son of London, one of the foremost chromolithographic printers of Victorian England, and the lithographers' credit appears at the lower right of the image. The color is printed throughout, built up from separate stones, not applied by hand.

These are the two polypody sheets of the book, drawn in the same upright layout with their fronds held high on slender stalks. The Victorian fern craze turned plates like this into decoration almost as soon as they were printed, and they remain among the most popular botanical prints for interiors today. Hung side by side or one above another, they bring a calm run of green to a kitchen, a study or a bedroom.

Even age toning throughout. Handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the two sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split. This item is sold unframed.