Fiddle Dock and Golden Dock, Antique Victorian Botanical Plate, circa 1873
€ 95
Original antique · The actual sheet photographed · Certificate of authenticity on request · Sold unframed · Worldwide shipping from € 15 (rates)
Date
circa 1873
Mapmaker / artist
Anne Pratt
Publisher
Frederick Warne and Co., Bedford Street, Covent Garden, London
Technique
Chromolithograph
Coloring
Printed color
Sheet size
24 × 15.5 cm (9.4 × 6.1 in)
Condition
Good
Reference
BG-14434-50
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
Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right and top left corners. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the left.
About this sheet
An original antique botanical plate of the British flora, printed in color in London for Frederick Warne and Co., this sheet is given over to the fiddle dock and the golden dock with two more British docks. Shaggy golden flower spikes rise through the center of the sheet, bristling with the long teeth that mark the golden dock, and they give the plate an unexpected warmth. A large puckered olive green leaf of the broad leaved dock lies behind them at the left, the fiddle dock stands at the right, and the cut stems and leaf bases are drawn across the bottom.
The sheet is a plate from Volume IV of Anne Pratt's The Flowering Plants, Grasses, Sedges, and Ferns of Great Britain, published by Frederick Warne and Co. of London. Pratt wrote the text and drew the plants herself, and the plates were printed in color rather than painted by hand, which is what allowed a thorough illustrated flora to be sold at a price an ordinary reader could meet.
A plate from this flora carries its period in every line: the close observation, the crowded but orderly arrangement, the soft printed color laid over careful outline. It sits as comfortably in a modern interior as in a Victorian one, and it has the advantage over a single flower study of giving several related plants together, which makes it rewarding to look at more than once.
Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom right and top left corners. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the left.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. 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.
