Set of 2 Hand-Colored Horsetail Engravings, Rough and Variegated, 1806-1809

This is an original set of 2 antique hand-colored copper engravings of horsetails, sold together, from Christian Schkuhr's survey of the ferns and fern allies printed at Wittenberg between 1806 and 1809. The two jointed horsetails that close the horsetail sequence, Tab. 172 a and 172 b, printed as a pair of supplementary plates. The 2 sheets are Equisetum hyemale, Equisetum variegatum and Equisetum ramosum. They are the same size, printed from the same press and colored by the same hand, so they frame and hang as one group.

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 edges of both sheets. Light foxing in the margins of both sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the two sheets. Brown marks on one of the two sheets.

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