Pair of Antique Chromolithographs of Bracken and Brake Ferns, circa 1885

A set of two original antique chromolithographs of bracken and the brake ferns from James Britten's European Ferns, published in London by Cassell, circa 1885, and sold together as one set of two sheets. Plate 8 shows bracken, Pteris aquilina, the commonest large fern of Europe, its fronds rising in green and autumn gold from rough grass, with young croziers uncurling at the right. At the left the thick black rhizome is drawn whole and cut through, and two pinnae show the upper side and the fertile under side with its brown margin of spores. Plate 9 shows three southern European brakes on one grassy bank: the ladder brake, Pteris longifolia, at the left, the tall Pteris arguta of Madeira and the Canaries spreading across the center, and the Cretan brake, Pteris cretica, at the right. Natural size details of each pinna are set along the top.

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.

Both sheets show ferns of the brake genus, Pteris, rising from rough grass: the common bracken of the north and the brakes of the south. 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. Marked handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the two sheets. Slight wear at the corners of both sheets.

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.