Antique Botany Print of Campanula Americana by Dodart 'circa 1680'
€ 250
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1680
Sheet size
49.5 × 35.5 cm (19.5 × 14.0 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-12512-63
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
General age-related toning and some soiling. Minor wear and creasing, blank verso. Please review the images for further condition details.
About this sheet
The American bellflower, Campanula americana, in an original copper engraving from Denis Dodart's Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des plantes, a Paris botanical work of the later seventeenth century. The plate is lettered "Trachelium Americanum minus, flore coeruleo patulo" beneath the image, and a signature at lower right reads "N. Robert del. et sculp."
The plant is drawn at full length against a plain ground within a ruled border: a tall, leafy flowering stem carries open, star-shaped blossoms near the top, and the roots spread in fine detail at the base. At the left, a separate small rosette of leaves with its own root tuft shows an earlier growth stage of the same plant. The engraving is in black and white with careful line shading, in the clear, scientific manner of the Paris royal botanical illustrations of the period.
The sheet is dated circa 1680 here. Dodart's Mémoires was produced under the Académie royale des sciences, and its plates are valued for their botanical accuracy as well as their craftsmanship; this one records an American species as it reached European gardens and herbaria.
