The Royal Fern, Decorative Antique Chromolithograph by Blair, circa 1885

This original antique fern chromolithograph shows the royal fern, Osmunda regalis, one of the largest ferns in Europe, its fronds on straw colored stalks tipped with the rust and gold fertile spikes that earned it the name flowering fern. A portion of a frond with its spore clusters is drawn at natural size at the right, and the sheathing base of a frond at the left. It is a plate from James Britten's European Ferns, published in London by Cassell, circa 1885, after a drawing made from the living plant by David Blair.

The plate comes 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 sheet was 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.

Fern collecting was a national passion in Victorian Britain, a craze contemporaries called pteridomania, and books like this one supplied the accurate pictures that collectors used to name the plants in their ferneries and glass cases. The royal fern, with its rust colored fertile tips, is one of the classic subjects of Victorian fern art. It frames well on its own in a simple light mount, or as one of a group of fern plates along a hallway or stair.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Handling soiling along the right edge. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete. One larger brown mark.

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