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[ Besler | Currier & Ives | Ehret | Grandville | Hooker | Merian | Redouté | Thornton | Volckamer ]
[ Selection of miscellaneous botanical prints ]
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A pair of superb, fruit still life chromolithographs by American artist Helen R. Searle (1834-1884). Helen was born in Burlington, Vermont, the daughter of architect Henry Searle. The Searle family moved to Rochester, New York, where the highly talented Helen began to paint fruit, flower and game still-lifes. In 1863, she exhibited six paintings in Rochester and in the following years similar paintings at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. This led to her appointment as art teacher at Mrs. Bryan's Female Seminary in Batavia. Desiring to improve her skill, Helen set off to Germany, where she became the private student of Johann Wilhelm Preyer, the leading still-life painter in Düsseldorf. She refined her style to reflect the realism and clarity for which the Düsseldorf school was noted and continued to exhibit her paintings, including at the National Academy of Design from 1866 to 1868. Upon her return to the United States in 1871, Helen married painter and art critic, James William Pattison. They lived in France, where Helen exhibited at the Paris Salon, Germany and in England. In 1881, the Pattisons move back to New York, then Chicago, followed by Jacksonville, Illinois, where Helen died in 1884.
Though there is no publisher information on the print, it has been written that some of Searle's still-lifes were reproduced as chromolithographs by Ehrgott & Forbriger, printmakers from Cincinnati, one of the centers of chromolithographic printing in the United States. Whoever made this, the quality is first rate. This print is very rare and is a superb example of both a talented American artist and American printmaking in the nineteenth century.
In the era of Enlightenment, books of knowledge, like Encyclopaedia Londinensis, took on a new importance and nobility in the scope of book publishing. Organized by printer, bookseller, and stationer John Wilkes (1750-1810, of Milland House, Sussex), the detailed, informative work reflects his experience as a newspaper proprietor and co-head of the British Directory Office. Fine artists like Richard Corbould were employed to draw allegorical prints to embellish the volumes. Though Wilkes died in 1810, publication of the Encyclopaedia continued until around 1829 in London. Exalting the pursuit of knowledge, its allegorical prints draw on neo-Classical vocabulary to confer nobility on the studies of the arts and sciences, such as geography, botany, painting, and others. In classically-draped garments, female figures pose amid Roman architecture and artifact, employing the tools of investigation specific to their discipline. Along with its finely-rendered botanical illustrations, scientific diagrams, and detailed maps, these allegories made Encyclopaedia Londinensis an extraordinary work of aesthetics and education. This allegory represents the science of botany. $250
"A Flower Basket." New York: Currier & Ives, 1872. Lithograph. Original hand color. Small folio. 8 1/2 x 12 1/2. Some light toning to paper, but very good condition. Cf. C:2038.
Nathaniel Currier, and then Currier & Ives, issued many seprately-issued botanical prints, intended to be framed and hung as decoration in Victorian American homes. This is a nice example of their output. $450
Go to list of other Currier & Ives botanical prints.
Ellen Robbins was a watercolorist and art teacher born in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1828, and died in 1905 in Boston. Robbins was mostly self-taught and she specialized in paintings of flowers and other still lives. She often painted on the Island of Shoals, off the New Hampshire coast, where she was able to visit the garden and home of the poet Celia Thaxter. She achieved considerable attention for her watercolors of autumn leaves, which she often put together into bound albums for sale. Later she advertised in Boston newspapers as “Miss Robbins’ Flower and Autumn Leaf Painting Classes.” Her watercolors achieved even further recognition when Louis Prang issued a number of chromolithographs based on them.
The China trade has captured the attention of European and American connoisseurs and collectors for the last two centuries. The traffic in porcelain, lacquered furniture, carvings and works on silk are best known to us today. In comparison, there has been less of an awareness of the varied work in the graphic arts that was also part of this commerce. This example of magnificent graphic work is not only beautiful to behold, but also of keen interest to the history of science. These exquisite and beautiful watercolor drawings were done by an unknown Chinese artist in the early 19th century. This is an early date for America’s China trade, which ran from approximately 1790 to 1890. The elegant handling of the flowers and the calligraphic expertise are unmistakably Chinese. This fine image portrays a camellia stalk with a bud and two blossoms, with foliage, over which hover two different types of butterflies. A delightful natural history image. $2,600
Woodcut of Chrysanthemum. Japanese. Date unknown. Woodblock. 12 1/2 x 8 1/4. Very good condition.
A beautiful and delicate depiction of a chrysanthemum. The flower was introduced to Japan around the eight century from China. So taken were the Japanese with the flower that they adopted a single flowered chrysanthemum as the crest and official seal of the Emperor. They also, developed Kiku, which is the art of meticulously cultivating chrysanthemums. $275
Paul Crillon Barton. “Arthemis Cotula." [Wild Cammomile]. From Vegetable Materia Medica of the Unites States or Medical Botany, containing a botanical, general and medical history of medicinal plants indigenous to the United States. Philadelphia: M Carey and Son, 1817-18. Quarto. Engravings by Tanner, Vallance Kearney & Co. Fine condition. Rare.
William P.C. Barton (1786-1856) published a highly ambitious treatise on the medical vegetables and plants of the United States in 1817. Barton was a former student of the naturalist Benjamin Smith Barton. The illustrations in Vegetable Materia Medica were engraved after drawings by the author and were later hand-painted by Barton and others. Some copies were left partially or totally uncolored. Barton, a botanist, naval surgeon, and professor at the American Medical College in Philadelphia, sought to promote "the advancement of national science" by encouraging Americans to examine and describe the botany of their own William country, rather than leaving it to European naturalists. Theses rare prints are indeed beautifully engraved and colored. This series as a whole is one of the earliest and most important American color plate books. $250
[ Besler | Currier & Ives | Ehret | Grandville | Hooker | Merian | Redouté | Thornton | Volckamer ]
Go to page with reference books on botanical illustration
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©The Philadelphia Print Shop, Ltd. September 9, 2008
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