Set of 3 Antique Botanical Prints of European Spleenworts, circa 1885

A set of three original antique chromolithographs of European spleenworts and the rustyback from James Britten's European Ferns, published in London by Cassell, circa 1885, and sold together as one set of three sheets. Plate 14 shows the wall ferns of Europe growing in the joints of an old dry stone wall: wall rue, the green spleenwort, the maidenhair spleenwort, the smooth rock spleenwort and the scaly rustyback, Ceterach officinarum. Above the wall the five species are laid out as single fronds, the rustyback in soft cinnamon. Plate 16 shows the sea spleenwort, Asplenium marinum, hanging from the rock of a coastal cliff, its thick, glossy blue green fronds on dark red stalks and the red brown lines of spores showing on their undersides. Two fertile pinnae, upper and lower side, are enlarged at the foot of the sheet. Plate 17 shows two spleenworts drawn whole with their dark rootstocks: the black spleenwort, Asplenium adiantum-nigrum, with its glossy, deep green triangular fronds at the left, and the lanceolate spleenwort, Asplenium lanceolatum, at the right, both carrying fronds dotted with brown spores.

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.

These are the three spleenwort sheets of the book, one genus on three sheets of the same size and style. 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.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Handling soiling along the edges of two of the three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of two of the three sheets. All corners complete on every sheet.

These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. They are three original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split. This item is sold unframed.