1777-1824 Rare Large Matted Folio Hand-Colored Copper-Plate Botanical Engraving From:
FLORA LONDINENSIS
OR
PLATES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF SUCH PLANTS
AS GROW IN THE
ENVIRONS OF LONDON
By W I L L I A M C U R T I S
URTICA URENS
(Nettle)
This magnificent, professionally matted large folio engraving originates from William Curtis's Flora Londinensis, published in London between 1777 & 1798. Appears to be on handmade wove paper which may indicate it's from the 1818-1828 edition.
The composition, drawing & detailed line-engraving are quite stunning. The meticulously detailed hand water-coloring appears to be as bright as the day it was painted. Many of these extremely rare plates from this work are among the best botanical line-engravings I've seen & collected.
The Volumes:
The Flora Londinensis are famous folio-sized volumes that illustrated & described the flora found in the London region of the mid 18th century.
The Flora was published by William Curtis in six large volumes. The descriptions of the plants included hand-colored copperplate plates by botanical artists such as James Sowerby, Sydenham Edwards and William Kilburn.
The full title is: Flora Londinensis: or, plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London: with their places of growth, and times of flowering, their several names according to Linnæus and other authors: with a particular description of each plant in Latin and English. To which are added, their several uses in medicine, agriculture, rural œconomy and other arts.
The Author & Editor:
William Curtis (11 January 1746 – 7 July 1799) was an English botanist and entomologist, who was born at Alton, Hampshire, site of the Curtis Museum.
Curtis began as an apothecary, before turning his attention to botany and other natural history. He was demonstrator of plants and Praefectus Horti at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1771 to 1777. He established his own London Botanic Garden at Lambeth in 1779, moving to Brompton in 1789. He published the Flora Londinensis (6 volumes, 1777–1798), a pioneering work. he went on the publish The Botanical Magazine in 1787, a work that would also feature beautiful hand colored octavo-sized plates by artists such as James Sowerby and Sydenham Edwards. The Botanical Magazine was & remains immensely popular..
The Artists:
Curtis commissioned some of the best botanical artists of the age in London, such as James Sowerby, Sydenham Edwards and William Kilburn.
James Sowerby was one a highly esteemed & prolific English naturalist, illustrator and mineralogist. His immense volume of engravings from his own drawings in the various publications he produced & contributed to is astounding. He fathered a dynasty of Sowerbys who created & published important plates & works on Natural History, especially in the realm of Conchology (Seashells).
Sydenham Teast (or Teak) Edwards (5 August 1768 – 8 February 1819) was a natural history illustrator. Edwards produced superb plates at a prodigious rate: between 1787 and 1815 he produced over 1,700 watercolors for Curtis's Botanical Magazine alone. He illustrated Cynographia Britannica (1800) (an encyclopaedic compendium of dog breeds in Britain), New Botanic Garden (1805-7), New Flora Britannica (1812), and The Botanical Register (1815-19). He also provided drawings for encyclopedias such as Pantologia and Rees's Cyclopædia. He completed a number of parrot illustrations between 1810 and 1812 which were acquired by Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Edwards was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1804.
William Kilburn (1745–1818) was an illustrator for William Curtis' Flora Londinensis, as well as a leading designer and printer of calico. A few hundred originals of his water color designs make up the Kilburn Album, housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Condition:
Appears to be in fair-good condition for a centuries-old engraving. The hand-coloring appears sharp & brilliant. The quality of the work is stunning. Some foxing & age-toning, mostly beyond the plate-mark & hidden by the mat. Please peruse the detailed photos. These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.
Text Page(s): This one comes with its original text page(s). I've included a scan of a title page from one of the related volumes for reference, it's not part of this listing.
Size: The full matted size is 19x15-1/2 inches approximately. The print itself is 17-1/4 x 11-1/4 Inches approximately
