Set of 3 Antique Hand-Colored Fern Prints, Brittle Bladder Fern, 1806-1809

This is an original set of 3 antique hand-colored copper engravings of shield ferns, sold together, from Christian Schkuhr's survey of the ferns and fern allies printed at Wittenberg between 1806 and 1809. The brittle bladder fern and two of its varieties, Tab. 54 to 56, the same species three ways. The 3 sheets are Aspidium fragile, Aspidium fragile, varietas and Aspidium fragile, varietas. 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.

Printed from a copper plate and colored by hand when it was published, the sheet shows the qualities that separate original hand coloring from printed color: the wash crosses the engraved line in places, the strength of the green changes across the frond, and the fine work on the spore cases is picked out in a browner tone over the engraving. The plate mark is visible in the paper. 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. Handling soiling along the edges of all three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of all three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of two of the three sheets.

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