Antique Botanical Print – Exotic Orchid Odontoglossum Wattianum, c.1888

€ 580

Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)

Date: 1888
Sheet size: 52.5 × 35 cm (20.7 × 13.8 in)
Condition: Good
Reference: PCT-60630

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.

Condition

Good condition with light age toning and scattered foxing in the margins. Image area clean and vibrant. No tears or repairs. Blank verso.

About this sheet

The orchid Odontoglossum wattianum, an original chromolithograph from Reichenbachia: Orchids Illustrated and Described, issued by Henry Frederick Conrad Sander between 1888 and 1894. The plate is lettered "Reichenbachia" at the upper left and "Odontoglossum Wattianum" beneath the image, and bears the signature of the artist Henry Moon, with a Gustav Leutzsch credit as chromolithographer in the lower left margin.

The plate shows a spray of blooms on arching stems rising from a small clump of pseudobulbs at the base, with long, strap-like green leaves curving across the sheet. The sepals and petals are chestnut-brown mottled with golden yellow, and each flower has a pale lip marked with a deep magenta blotch. The plant is shown against a soft gray-green vignette on cream paper, with the subject drawn at full size.

Odontoglossum wattianum is native to the cloud forests of Colombia. Reichenbachia was a luxurious folio work of the orchid boom of the late Victorian period, and Moon's plates were drawn from living plants.