After Pancrace Bessa Art

Set of 4 double-page mezzotint engravings, printed in colour and finished by hand. [Published: H. Lentz and H.G. Neubauer, Regensburg, 1737]. An attractive collection of fine plates...

This is a striking original antique colored botanical mezzotint and line double page engraving of banana plants, which is finished with hand-coloring. It is entitled "Banana 1. Musa,...

A magnificent print by Robert John Thornton; aquatint and mezzotint, printed in colour and finished by hand, heightened with gum arabic, from The Temple of Flora...

Original stipple engraving by Charles-Louis Ruotte, printed in colour and finished by hand. [Paris, 1805] Prévost came from a long line of French artists spanning 400 years. Jean-...

Magnificent print by Robert John Thornton; aquatint and mezzotint, printed in colour and finished by hand, heightened with gum arabic, from The Temple of Flora. [London 1799] First ...

An 18th century hand colored botanical engraving by Johann Wilhelm Weinmann (1683-1741) depicting the following flowering sage plants: a. Horminum Peregrinum Foliis Salvice, b. Hormi...

Original stipple engraving by Charles-Louis Ruotte, printed in colour and finished by hand. [Paris, 1805] Prevost's "Collection des Fleurs et Fruits...

Stipple-engraved plate of Bananas printed in colours and finished by hand. [Chez l’Auteur, Paris, 1802] The highest peak of Redoute's artistic and botanical achievement... Among the most important monuments of botanical illustration ever to be published." (Frans A. Stafleu, "Redoute - peintre de fleurs" in A Catalogue of Redouteana). Redoute was at the height of his powers during the publication of Les Liliacees. It is easily the equal in accomplishment of its more popular successor, Les Roses. The work is broader than its title implies, including as it does petaloid monocotyledons in general belonging, for example to Commelinaceae, Bromeliaceae, Liliaceae, At this time, he had as patron and sponsor Josephine...

Magnificent print by Robert John Thornton. Aquatint and mezzotint, printed in colour and finished by hand, heightened with gum arabic, from The Temple of Flora. [London 1799] First state. Thornton was a prolific medical author and Doctor of Medicine, practicing at St Andrews University and licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. However, he is best remembered for this great botanical publication The Temple of Flora, which formed a part of the larger work - New Illustration of the Sexual system of Linnaeus. In 1797, he also began advertising for subscribers to his planned natural history publishing venture, which eventually comprised of 30 folio botanical plates. For these remarkable illustrations, he engaged the services of the leading artists and engravers of his day: Sir William Beechey, James Opie, Henry Raeburn, John Russell, Philip Reinagle and others as painters; Francesco Bartolozzi, Richard Earlom and John Landseer. Most of the images were painted by Peter Charles Henderson and Philip Reinagle. These botanical illustrations are unique as they were the first flower prints with landscape backgrounds, depicting the natural habitat of the plant. The life-size flowers stand out dramatically and the whole effect is startlingly modern. Thornton's announced intention was to make this work the most magnificent tribute ever paid to the famous Swedish botanist Linnaeus by illustrating his Sexual System with the finest possible prints. All these were engraved on a larger scale than anything which had hitherto appeared and then were printed in colour, an expensive and uncommon method in England at this time. A brilliant effect. This rare and celebrated plate of the Roses...

[MERIAN, Maria Sibyl]. Pineapple with foliage. The Hague, Gosse, 1719. Engraving of a Pineapple with foliage by J. Mulder, P. Sluyter and D. Stoopendaal after Merian, with later hand-colour, from Dissertatio de Generatione et Metamorphasibus Insectorum Surinamensium. Framed and glazed, overall dimensions: 40cm by 53.2cm by 4.5cm. Superb engravings which depict the metamorphoses of South American insects and the exotic plants on which they feed. Maria Sybilla, daughter of the German engraver and publisher Matthias Merian, devoted herself to the study of European insects and their metamorphoses. As a result of the wealth of tropical varieties being brought back by the Dutch West Indies Company...

This is an original antique colored botanical mezzotint and line engraving of a flowering Betel Nut Palm plants, which is finished with hand-coloring. It is entitled "Fagus Fau Buch,...

This is an original antique colored botanical mezzotint and line engraving of banana plants, which is finished with hand-coloring. It is entitled "Banana 2. Mauze, Baradis-feigen", p...