Set of 3 Large Decorative Fern Chromolithographs by David Blair, circa 1885

A set of three original antique chromolithographs of Dicksonia culcita, the chain fern and the alpine lady fern from James Britten's European Ferns, published in London by Cassell, circa 1885, and sold together as one set of three sheets. Plate 4 shows Dicksonia culcita, the great fern of the Atlantic islands and the Iberian peninsula, drawn at one eighth of natural size so that the whole crown of lacy, finely divided fronds spreads across the sheet from a mound of golden brown hair. An upper and an under pinnule, the second dotted with spores, sit in the two top corners. Plate 13 shows the European chain fern, Woodwardia radicans, its long arching fronds filling the whole width of the sheet above a rocky bank of grass and stones. Two pinnules in the upper corners show the upper surface and the under surface with its chains of oblong spore cases. Plate 25 shows the alpine lady fern, Polypodium alpestre, drawn as one broad shuttlecock of finely cut fronds in graded greens and yellows, rising from a bed of bright yellow green moss. Three enlarged pinnules, one showing the spores beneath, flank the plant.

The plates come from European Ferns by James Britten, issued in London by Cassell in parts between 1879 and 1881 and bound up as one quarto volume with thirty colored plates. This copy carries the imprint Cassell and Company, Limited, London, Paris, New York and Melbourne, the style the firm adopted in 1883, so the sheets were printed for a later issue of the book, circa 1885. Britten, 1846 to 1924, worked in the Department of Botany at the British Museum and was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and his text covers the ferns of the whole of Europe rather than of Britain alone. 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.

Each of the three landscape sheets is filled edge to edge by a single great fern, which makes this the boldest decorative group in the volume. Blair drew each plant whole, often in its habitat, and set enlarged details of the fronds and spore cases around it, so each sheet works both as a scientific record and as a picture. Framed in matching simple frames, the sheets make a coherent botanical group for a wall, a stair or a garden room.

Even age toning throughout. Handling soiling along the edges of two of the three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of all three sheets.

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.