Original Antique Hand-Colored Fern Engraving, Blechnum cartilagineum, 1806-1809

An original antique hand-colored engraving of Blechnum cartilagineum, plate 108.b from the fern volume of Christian Schkuhr's cryptogamic flora, issued at Wittenberg between 1806 and 1809. The hard ferns carry separate fertile and sterile fronds, which Schkuhr figures side by side. The sheet is lettered Blechnum cartilagineum beneath the figure, in the engraved script Schkuhr used throughout the work, and the plate number is 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.

This is one of the 221 copper plates of Christian Schkuhr's volume on the cryptogamic plants, the ferns, club mosses, horsetails and water ferns that stand as the twenty-fourth class of the Linnaean system. Schkuhr drew the plants, cut the plates and published the work himself at Wittenberg, issuing it in nine parts between 1806 and 1809. The bibliography records it at Pritzel 8205, and the first impressions were printed on bluish paper, as this sheet is.

This is an engraving on copper with original hand coloring, printed on the bluish paper that the first impressions of the work were issued on. The engraved line carries the structure and the watercolor carries the color, applied by hand so that no two copies of the plate are quite alike. Hung singly the plate makes a calm, graphic statement; grouped with others from the same volume it makes a wall. The uniform sheet size and the shared palette mean these plates frame and group easily, which is how most buyers use them, in a study, a bedroom, a garden room or a professional office.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right and top left corners.

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