Purple Coneflower Echinacea, Antique Bertuch Print, circa 1810

This antique botanical print from Bertuch's Bilderbuch shows the purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, a single elegant stem in full flower. The heading reads Pflanzen CXVIII and the Vienna mark XII.B.50 is engraved at lower right.

The flower is shown with its raised golden cone and long drooping pink rays tipped with pale yellow, above two toothed lance shaped leaves. A native of the North American prairies, the plant was then called Rudbeckia purpurea and was grown in European botanic gardens as a showy novelty; its medicinal use came later. The sparse composition, with generous space around the single stem, gives this plate a modern feel.

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 begun by Anton Pichler as the Bilderbuch zum Nutzen und Vergnuegen der Jugend, with text in German and French; Pichler issued the first ten volumes, and the later volumes, including this one, are believed to have been issued by B. Ph. Bauer in Vienna. 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 XII.B.50. Vienna volume XII follows Weimar volume VI, which appeared in 1807, so this plate was published no earlier than that. 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 light toning, a small stain near the title, a tiny color spot and a small chip at the lower left corner.

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