Antique Botanical Print of the "Surinam Centropogon" by Sir Joseph Paxton

Details

Description

Botanical Print of Centropogon surinamensis from Paxton’s Magazine of Botany
English, 1847

S. Holden del. & lith. | Paxton’s Magazine … Read more Botanical Print of Centropogon surinamensis from Paxton’s Magazine of Botany
English, 1847

S. Holden del. & lith. | Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, and Register of Flowering Plants, vol. 13, p. 149 | London, 1847

This original hand-colored lithograph depicts Centropogon surinamensis, drawn and lithographed by S. Holden for volume 13 of Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, and Register of Flowering Plants, where it appears at page 149 (1847). A leafy flowering shoot rises from a single stem, its broad ovate leaves finely toothed at the margins and turned to show their paler, blue-green undersides, beneath a terminal cluster of long, curved, pale pink tubular flowers flushed deeper rose toward the base, with the anther tubes projecting beyond the recurved lobes. Holden’s lithographic line carries the veining and serration, while the color was applied by hand, the greens laid in graduated washes to model the leaves. The plant is titled in script below the image and the plate is credited to Holden at lower left.

The print is presented in a French mat with ink-ruled lines, a rose, terracotta and green marbled-paper panel and a gilt fillet, within a gold-toned frame. It is mounted on buffered museum board and glazed with Denglas, a UV-filtering, low-reflection glass.

The soft pinks and deep greens, set off by the marbled mat, suit a library, study, garden room or hallway, and the print hangs well in a group with other botanical plates of the period.

Dimensions
Height (framed): 16¼ inches (41.3 cm)
Width (framed): 14 inches (35.6 cm)
Depth (framed): 1 inch (2.5 cm)

Marks
Inscribed in the plate “S. Holden del. & Lith.” lower left and titled “Centropogon surinamiensis.” below the image. Two typed framer’s labels to the backboard, one describing the buffered museum mounting board and Denglas glazing, the other headed “Paxton CA 1834-1848 Hand Coloured” and identifying the print as from the Magazine of Botany.

Provenance
Earle D. Vandekar of Knightsbridge.

Condition
Good. Glazed with Denglas UV-filtering, low-reflection glass.

References
Frans A. Stafleu and Richard S. Cowan, Taxonomic Literature, 2nd ed., no. 7554 (Paxton’s Magazine of Botany).
Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, and Register of Flowering Plants, vol. 13 (1847), p. 149, digitized copy, Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, vol. 7, t. 225 (1794), the same species figured as Lobelia cornuta.

Historical Context
Joseph Paxton (1803–1865), head gardener to the 6th Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth and later designer of the Crystal Palace, edited Paxton’s Magazine of Botany, and Register of Flowering Plants from 1834 to 1849. Issued in monthly parts and collected in sixteen volumes, it was published in London by Orr & Smith and later W. S. Orr & Co., and printed by Bradbury and Evans. Its colored plates were copper engravings by F. W. Smith and lithographs by S. Holden, with woodcuts in the text by C. J. Fleming and O. Jewitt. Stafleu and Cowan record 723 colored plates in their standard copy, though the count varies between sets, and the magazine is especially admired for its orchids and other tropical introductions.

Centropogon surinamensis, now classified as Centropogon cornutus, is a shrubby member of the bellflower family (Campanulaceae) native to tropical Central and South America. Linnaeus described it as Lobelia surinamensis, the name recording its origin in Suriname, and it was already grown in British hothouses when Curtis’s Botanical Magazine figured it in 1794. Most species of Centropogon are pollinated by hummingbirds, to which the long, curved flower tube is adapted.

(Ref: NY11176-irrx) See less