Antique Allspice Botanical Print, Myrtus Pimenta, Hand Colored, c.1831

1831 · Birds, Plants & Natural History

Antique Allspice Botanical Print, Myrtus Pimenta, Hand Colored, c.1831

Name: Antique Allspice Botanical Print, Myrtus Pimenta, Hand Colored, c.1831
Brand: American Maps and Prints
SKU: BG-14181-11
Price: 770 USD
Availability: InStock

$770

€690 · dollar price at today's exchange rate

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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.

Date: 1831
Kind: Birds, Plants & Natural History
Size: 27.1 × 22.7 cm (10.7 × 8.9 in)
Condition: Good. Moderate age-related toning and light surface dirt, consistent with early 19th-century material. No tears or losses.
Period: The Early Republic
Reference: BG-14181-11

What the condition grades mean

Excellent: Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
Very good: Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
Good: Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
Fair: Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.

Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.

Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.

Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured. Delivery and import charges.

About this piece

Allspice, Myrtus Pimenta, a hand-colored copper engraving from Jonathan Carl Zenker's Merkantilische Waarenkunde, c.1831. The Latin name "Myrtus Pimenta L." is lettered at the head with "Taf. XI" at the upper right.

A flowering branch is drawn at full height, with large oval leaves in greens of different tones and branched clusters of small white flowers at the tips. Below it, in a row along the bottom edge, are numbered details: a sprig of ripe berries, a single berry whole and in section, a seed, and the parts of the flower opened out, including the many stamens. The coloring is limited to green on the foliage and a warm brown on the fruit, and the engraved line is left clear.

Allspice, or pimento, is native to the Caribbean and Central America, and its dried unripe berries were an important article of trade to Europe. Zenker's work belongs to the commercial botany of the early 19th century, and it described the plants behind the goods that merchants dealt in.

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