About this sheet
A pair of original antique German medicinal plant chromolithographs, sold together and not separately. Both are from Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen and both follow the format that makes the series so useful: the whole plant drawn down the center of the sheet, the plant family lettered in the upper right corner, the Latin binomial beneath the image, the plate number at the foot, and a column of dissected flowers, stamens, seeds and sections ranged down the margins. One is the elecampane, Inula helenium, of the Compositae; the other the orange mullein, Verbascum phlomoides, of the Scrophularineae. They are two original sheets sold together as one lot, and the set is never split.
One sheet is the elecampane, Inula helenium, headed Compositae and numbered 90, a tall stem of ragged golden daisy flowers with a great ribbed leaf beside it and a column of dissected florets, seeds and a sectioned flower head ranged down each margin. The other is the orange mullein, Verbascum phlomoides, headed Scrophularineae and numbered 45, a thick woolly stem crowded with soft yellow flowers, with the buds, the opened corolla, the stamens and the seed capsule drawn separately at the sides in a line of small studies.
Kohler's Medizinal-Pflanzen was published at Gera Untermhaus by Franz Eugen Kohler from 1887, with the plants drawn from nature by Walther Muller and printed in chromolithography. It is the best known German herbal of the nineteenth century and remains the standard illustrated source for European medicinal plants. Both of these species earned their place in it: elecampane root was the classic remedy for coughs, and mullein flowers were steeped for the same purpose. These plates have become a staple of kitchen and dining room decoration because the botanical drawing is clean, the color is soft and the sheets are a convenient size to frame. Two yellow flowered herbals hang naturally together. They are also the right thing for a herbalist, a distillery or a pharmacy, where the medicinal connection does real work.
Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the edges of both sheets. Light foxing in the margins of one of the two sheets. Slight wear at the corners of one of the two 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.
