Antique Botanical Prints by Sir Joseph Paxton From the Magazine of Botany

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Description

Pair of Botanical Prints from Paxton’s Magazine of Botany:
Dipladenia nobilis and Echites splendens

Samuel Holden, del. & lith.
Paxton’s … Read more Pair of Botanical Prints from Paxton’s Magazine of Botany:
Dipladenia nobilis and Echites splendens

Samuel Holden, del. & lith.
Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, London: Bradbury and Evans
Echites splendens: vol. 10, 1843; Dipladenia nobilis: vol 16, 1849
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A fine pair of original hand-coloured lithographs from Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, and Register of Flowering Plants, both by Samuel Holden, presented together in matching marbled French mats — in a distinctive blue, pink, and white pattern — with gilt fillets and warm gold-toned frames.

The first print depicts Dipladenia nobilis, inscribed in cursive script below the image with the lithographer’s credit “S. Holden del. & Lith.” to the lower left. It shows a spray of elegant white five-petalled flowers with crimson-flushed yellow throats, borne with pointed buds above a stem of paired, glossy, deep green ovate leaves — the clean composition and restrained palette making it one of the more refined plates in the series.

The second print depicts Echites splendens, published in volume 10 (1843), now more commonly known as Mandevilla splendens. The hand-coloured lithograph, again by Samuel Holden, shows a single large, fully open bloom of white petals suffused with lilac-pink at the ruffled margins and a deep rose-purple throat, set against broad, strongly veined green leaves — the generous scale of the flower and the richness of its colouring giving the plate a particular boldness among the Apocynaceae subjects in the series.

Dimensions
Each print (framed):
15¾ inches (40 cm) high,
13½ inches (34.3 cm) wide,
1 inch (2.5 cm) deep.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge.

Condition
Good.

Historical Context
Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, and Register of Flowering Plants was published in London by Bradbury and Evans between 1834 and 1849 under the editorship of Joseph Paxton (1803–1865)—the celebrated gardener, architect of the Crystal Palace, and head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth. The publication ran to sixteen volumes and is distinguished by its high standard of illustration: copper engravings by F. W. Smith and lithographs by Samuel Holden, with woodcut vignettes by C. J. Fleming and O. Jewitt. Staflěu & Cowan record some 723 coloured plates in the standard copy, making it one of the most ambitious British botanical periodicals of the Victorian era.

Both subjects in this pair belong to the family Apocynaceae and are native to tropical South America, introduced to British horticulture in the 1840s and eagerly cultivated in heated glasshouses. Dipladenia nobilis and Echites splendens were subsequently reclassified together within the genus Mandevilla, and Mandevilla splendens — with its large, showy blooms — remains one of the most widely grown ornamental climbers of the family to the present day.

(Ref: NY11179-irrx) See less