About this sheet
A pair of original antique hand colored botanical plates of nineteenth century garden flowers, sold together and not separately. Both are upright sheets of the same size with the plant drawn large and centered against the bare paper and the name lettered in small roman beneath: Azalea sinensis, Loddiges variety macrantha, and Nuttalia grandiflora with the authority Paxt. The coloring is applied by hand over an engraved outline, cream flushed with pink on the azalea and a clear deep rose on the Nuttalia. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.
One sheet is the azalea, a full head of cream flowers flushed pink at the edges with yellow blotches in their throats, borne above a whorl of glossy leaves on a woody stem; the caption beneath reads Azalea sinensis. Lodd. var. macrantha. The other is Nuttalia grandiflora, two open flowers of deep rose with a green eye held on slender stems above a spray of narrow divided leaves, with a faint outline study of a single palmate leaf drawn behind them in pencil gray; the caption reads Nuttalia grandiflora. Paxt.
Both plants were new to European gardens when these plates were made. The Chinese azalea had arrived through the nursery of Conrad Loddiges at Hackney, which gave its name to this variety, and Nuttallia grandiflora was published by Joseph Paxton, the gardener who built the Crystal Palace, in his Magazine of Botany in 1838. Plates of this kind were issued in the horticultural periodicals that fed the Victorian appetite for new introductions, with each number carrying a few hand colored plates of whatever had just flowered. Flower prints of this size and softness are the easiest antique prints to place in a house, and a matched pair in pink and cream will go into a bedroom, a bathroom or a dressing room without any argument. The two balance each other, one full and blowsy and the other slender and upright. They are also an inexpensive way to start a collection of hand colored botanicals.
Even age toning throughout. Handling soiling along the edges of one of the two sheets. Slight wear at the corners of both sheets.
These are original antique prints, not modern reproductions. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
