circa 1849 · Birds, Plants & Natural History
Hand Colored Orchid Print, Laelia Cattleyoides, d'Orbigny, circa 1849
$160
€145 · dollar price at today's exchange rate
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Shipping to the United States: $50 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.
- Date
- circa 1849
- Maker
- Edouard Maubert, attributed
- Kind
- Birds, Plants & Natural History
- Technique
- Copper Engraving
- Color
- Original hand color
- Size
- 25 × 16 cm (9.8 × 6.3 in)
- Condition
- Good. Even age toning. Slight wear at the bottom left corner.
- Period
- Westward Expansion & Civil War
- Reference
- BG-14376
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
An original antique hand colored orchid plate showing two pseudobulbs rising from a length of rough bark, each carrying a pair of strap shaped leaves and a spray of soft pink and white flowers with a frilled lip. Three small dissections of the pollinia and the column are set around the plant. The running head reads Botanique at the center and MONOCOTYLEDONES. PL. 18 at the right; the caption beneath is lettered ORCHIDEES. Lelia faux Cattleya. (Lelia Cattleioides. A. Rich.) at half natural size, with the printer's line Folliau. imp.
The plate comes from the atlas volumes of the Dictionnaire universel d'histoire naturelle edited by Charles Dessalines d'Orbigny and published in Paris through the 1840s, a work of thirteen text volumes and three volumes of hand colored plates. The botanical plates are largely after Edouard Maubert, one of the best French flower draughtsmen of the period, and were engraved on steel or copper and then colored by hand in the Paris workshops.
Orchids are the single strongest subject in the botanical print market and have been since the nineteenth century, when orchid collecting became a mania among wealthy Europeans. The soft pink against the cream paper is easy to live with. This is a small sheet, so it is best framed with a generous mount and hung in a bathroom, a bedroom or a group of three or four.
Even age toning. Slight wear at the bottom left corner.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
