Authentic Antique Hand Finished Tree & Shrub Chromolithographs - Set of 13

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This set of thirteen (13) antique hand finished chromolithographs (each color laid in with a separate lithographic stone [with additional … Read more This set of thirteen (13) antique hand finished chromolithographs (each color laid in with a separate lithographic stone [with additional hand color]), depicts various varieties of trees and shrubs. These colorful botanical plates from Maple Grove Nurseries, S.L. Spoon & Son, Hartshorn, NC were printed in Rochester, New York c.1900 (at least 125 years old). Each plate contains a short caption describing the image. Printed on one side only. Some pencil marks, toning and some smudges inasmuch as these plates are from a salesman's sample book. As shown in the photos good - very good condition consistent with age and use. Dimensions: 5.3/8" x 8 1/2". Great for a large wall treatment or several smaller groupings.

Only the 13 lithographs are for sale. The images of the title page and the black leather portfolio may be printed out at the discretion of the buyer.

We combine shipping whenever possible.

As Rochester's gardening flourished a local bookseller with an interest in the subject, plant nurseries collected and published colored plates of fruit, flowers, shrubs, and fruit-bearing or purely ornamental trees. Selections of these plates sold by nursery sales people from the 1850s to the last decade of the century were usually bound into pocket-sized books about ten by six inches with stout leather covers, often stamped with the name of the nursery or the salesman offering the plants portrayed within. many recognised the wider appeal of the colored plates described by Charles van Ravenswaay as 'an innovation in American popular art' ("A Nineteenth-Century Garden", 1977, page 20.). Their polychromic attractions were extended to a larger audience in small selections from a larger-sized series presented in decorative bindings, . the earliest plates were simple watercolors, but later, as the demand grew, the technique of theorem paintings colored with the help of stencils was used to multiply the number of copies as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Later still engraved or lithographed outlines were colored by hand, and finally chromolithographs printed in color began to replace more laborious procedures, though many of these (such as the set of 12 in this listing) were finished by hand. Most of these processes involved the labour of teams of artists and colorists. See less