Drummond's Pitcher Plant: Hand-Colored Lithograph by Louis van Houtte, 1855
€ 240
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
1855
Sheet size
33 × 24.5 cm (13.0 × 9.6 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-13748-62
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
The condition of this genuine antique is good, given age, with the central fold line being a characteristic of its original publication. General age-related toning and/or occasional minor defects from handling.
About this sheet
Drummond's pitcher plant, Sarracenia drummondii, in a hand-colored lithograph from Louis Van Houtte's Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe, 1855. The plate is lettered "Sarracenia Drummondi" with the locality "Florida" beneath, and the Van Houtte imprint appears in tiny type at the lower left.
A group of tall, upright pitchers fills the sheet, drawn at life size and rising from the foot of the page. Each tube is light green with fine darker veining, flaring at the top into a hood patterned with a white network of translucent windows on a dark green ground, which is the feature that distinguishes this species. The rim of each mouth is edged with a thin pinkish lip. Two nodding flowers hang in the foreground, with deep red-brown petals folded around a green center and pale stalks arching over them. The plate is lithographed with strong flat color and a soft shaded finish on the tubes, and the sheet carries a central vertical fold from its original binding.
Sarracenia drummondii is native to the wet pine savannas of the southeastern United States, and carnivorous American plants of this kind were novelties in European glasshouses of the 1850s.
