Lot 9070: Bradbury & Moore - Male Crested Wood Fern; Lastrea Filix-mas. 16

This folio, nature printed color plate is from Henry Bradbury & Thomas Moore's work entitled The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland. The work was edited by John Lindley. It was published in London by Bradbury & Evans in 1855. Henry Bradbury perfected nature printing in the 1850s, in which an impression of the actual plant is created, leaving a lifelike representation with visible fibers and veins.

Moore's important work on nature printing was one of the first of the genre printed in England. The beautifully executed plates were produced under the direction of Henry Bradbury, England's first nature printer, and are considered to be among the finest pieces of nature printing ever completed. The plates were produced "... by passing the plant, under pressure, between a plate of soft lead from which an electrotype could be made" (Blunt). As a result, they recorded the smallest details of flowers and the finest venations of leaves.

Bradbury, whose father was of the publishing house Bradbury & Evans, studied at the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna. His interest in printing extended to "... the production of bank notes and the security of paper money, on which he discoursed at the Royal Institute" (DNB) and to the history of printing. He had many ideas for lavish and extensive works, including nature-printed books on fungi and trees and a work on the graphic arts of the nineteenth century, but none of these were ever realised. He died in 1860 at the age of twenty-nine.

~ 14 1/4" by 21 1/2"

Folio Nature-printed Plate

1855

Overall Excellent. There may be a few minor imperfections to be expected with age. Please review the image carefully for condition and contact us with any questions.

The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland