Set of 3 Original Antique Hand-Colored Fern Engravings, Cyathea, 1806-1809

This is an original set of 3 antique hand-colored copper engravings of tree ferns, sold together, from Christian Schkuhr's survey of the ferns and fern allies printed at Wittenberg between 1806 and 1809. Three tree ferns, Tab. 132 to 133, closing with the black tree fern of New Zealand. The 3 sheets are Cyathea extensa, Cyathea bisulca and Cyathea medullaris. 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.

The sheet is a copper engraving finished in watercolor by hand, and the coloring is original to the period of publication. The wash sits over the engraved outline and varies from figure to figure in the way hand work does, with the greens laid in several strengths to separate the upper and lower surfaces of the frond. The paper carries the plate mark of the copper plate. 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 all three sheets. Light foxing in the margins of all three sheets. Slight wear at the corners of all three sheets.

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