Sea Lavenders of the Salt Marsh, Antique Coastal Flower Print, circa 1873

This antique botanical plate is Plate 172 of Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain. It shows three British sea lavenders with the matted thrift of the salt marsh. Airy branching sprays of small lilac and blue flowers spread across the whole sheet, the brightest of them a clear blue at the center and the rest in soft mauve and dusty rose. Broad spoon shaped leaves rise through the middle, a woody branched rootstock is drawn at the lower left, and the open structure of the flower heads is what the plate is really about.

The sheet is a plate from Volume IV of Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, published by Frederick Warne and Co. of London. Pratt wrote the text and drew the plants herself, and the plates were printed in color rather than painted by hand, which is what allowed a thorough illustrated flora to be sold at a price an ordinary reader could meet.

Anne Pratt, born at Strood in Kent in 1806 and self taught as a botanist, was among the best known botanical illustrators in Victorian England. Her books were accurate enough to be used and plain enough to be read, and this flora stayed a standard household reference for decades. Her drawings outlived her by a long way: the fern plates from this very work were still being reused, reduced and unattributed, in pocket guides well into the twentieth century.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. A few small foxing spots 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.