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Botanical Prints
Hand-colored engravings and lithographs from the great botanical publishing houses of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Selected Works
Best Pieces
M. P. Bessa (1772-1835) was one of the finest French botanical illustrators of the early 19th century, celebrated for the luminous quality of his hand-colored plates. His masterwork, the Herbier General de l'Amateur (Paris, 1827), is among the most beautiful botanical publications of the period.
Lush foliage, ferns, and botanical specimens rendered in vivid original hand color from the Encyclopaedia Londinensis.
Cactus & Succulents
Pancrace Bessa (1772-1835) was one of the finest French botanical illustrators of the early 19th century. These stipple engravings are from the Flore des Jardiniers, published in Paris, 1836, and capture the exotic forms of cacti and succulents with remarkable delicacy and vivid original hand coloring.
Hand-colored copper plate engravings of fruits, vegetables, and edible plants from the Encyclopaedia Londinensis, 1803–1818.
Fruit
Pancrace Bessa (1772-1835) was one of the finest French botanical illustrators of the early 19th century. These stipple engravings of fruit are from the Flore des Jardiniers, published in Paris, 1836, and are celebrated for their luminous color and exquisite detail.
Trees
Abbe Noel Antoine Pluche (1688-1761) was a French clergyman and natural historian whose celebrated work Le Spectacle De La Nature (Paris, 1732-1750, with later editions through 1752) brought natural history to a wide popular audience. The engravings in this encyclopaedic work depict insects, plants, birds, and the natural world with a charm and clarity that made it one of the most widely read scientific works of the 18th century.
Tropicals
Michel Etienne Descourtilz (1775-1835) was a French naturalist and physician whose monumental Flore Medicale des Antilles (Paris, 1821-1829) is one of the most important and visually spectacular botanical publications of the early 19th century. The hand-colored lithographs, issued in eight volumes, depict the medicinal and edible plants of the Caribbean with extraordinary richness of color and botanical precision.
British and Exotic Ferns
Edward Joseph Lowe's celebrated fern monographs, published in the mid-19th century, remain among the finest botanical illustrations of pteridophytes ever produced. Hand-colored engravings from Ferns: British and Exotic (1856–1860) and A Natural History of New and Rare Ferns (1862).
Plantes de la France, 1819
Jean-Henri Jaume Saint-Hilaire's Plantes de la France, first edition, published in Paris in 1819. Exquisite stipple etchings, hand-colored in the French manner, depicting the native flora of France with exceptional botanical precision and elegance.
Botanical Illustrations
John Wright was a prolific 19th-century botanical illustrator whose hand-colored engravings appeared in some of the most important horticultural publications of the Victorian era. His plates are prized for their precise draughtsmanship, vivid original coloring, and faithful representation of cultivated and wild plant species.
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