Purple Foxglove and Snapdragon, Antique Cottage Garden Print, circa 1873

Plate 155 of Anne Pratt's British flora, an original antique color plate printed for Frederick Warne and Co. of London, gives the purple foxglove with the great and lesser snapdragons. Crimson bells of Digitalis purpurea hang down the left of the sheet, each one open to show the pale throat spotted with dark purple, and the buds above them are still closed. At the right a tall spike of Antirrhinum majus carries large soft salmon pink flowers with yellow lips, and the long narrow leaves of both plants fill the spaces between.

The plate comes from The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, and their allies the Club Mosses, Pepperworts and Horsetails, written and drawn by Anne Pratt and published in London by Frederick Warne and Co. of Bedford Street, Covent Garden. The work runs to six volumes and was issued under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This sheet belongs to Volume IV, whose title page records 249 species printed in color.

Anne Pratt, 1806 to 1893, wrote more than twenty books on plants and birds and received little critical attention in her own lifetime, which later writers have put down to the Victorian reluctance to take a self taught woman seriously as a scientist. Her books nonetheless sold in very large numbers, and her plates remain widely familiar images of the British wild flora of that century.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left and top left corners. Several larger brown marks.

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