Details
NATURE PRINTING -- Mrs Emily Maria GREY. An album of mounted prints with manuscript title 'Grasses printed from nature by Emily Maria Grey, Bedfont Lodge. 1863.' [Middlesex: 1860-1863].
2° (375 x 270mm). Black ink manuscript title (verso blank), 4pp. manuscript index, the first page headed 'Grasses printed from Nature', 94 oatmeal-coloured leaves with 188 direct transfer prints in black onto wove paper, numbered from 1 to 165 with twenty-three 'bis' numbers, all but six with identifying manuscript inscription at foot of print giving Latin binomial or common name or both, six plates with additional information about where and when the grasses were collected. (Three spotted.) Original green half morocco, spine gilt with two lettering-pieces 'Grasses Painted from Nature.' and 'Mrs. L. Grey. 1863'.
A FINE HIGH QUALITY EXAMPLE OF NATURE-PRINTING. These finely conceived and executed prints were produced using some form of direct transfer method - the samples of grass have been inked and then a print taken from the sample. This process would almost certainly be limited to one or two prints per sample as the grass would be destroyed in the making of the print. The great skill and artistic sense demonstrated here by Emily Grey is in the arrangement of the samples, applying the correct amount of pressure during the printing process and knowing how much and what sort of ink to apply. The present album is apparently made up from examples collected in and around Bedfont in Middlesex (other places identified include Norwood and Stanwell Moor) but also included is one sample from Germany. As a whole it compares very favourably with the commercially produced 'nature-printed' works of the period, as exemplified by the work of Henry Bradbury and Constantin von Ettinghausen, but is also a very fine example of a genre that has a long history stretching back to the fifteenth century.
2° (375 x 270mm). Black ink manuscript title (verso blank), 4pp. manuscript index, the first page headed 'Grasses printed from Nature', 94 oatmeal-coloured leaves with 188 direct transfer prints in black onto wove paper, numbered from 1 to 165 with twenty-three 'bis' numbers, all but six with identifying manuscript inscription at foot of print giving Latin binomial or common name or both, six plates with additional information about where and when the grasses were collected. (Three spotted.) Original green half morocco, spine gilt with two lettering-pieces 'Grasses Painted from Nature.' and 'Mrs. L. Grey. 1863'.
A FINE HIGH QUALITY EXAMPLE OF NATURE-PRINTING. These finely conceived and executed prints were produced using some form of direct transfer method - the samples of grass have been inked and then a print taken from the sample. This process would almost certainly be limited to one or two prints per sample as the grass would be destroyed in the making of the print. The great skill and artistic sense demonstrated here by Emily Grey is in the arrangement of the samples, applying the correct amount of pressure during the printing process and knowing how much and what sort of ink to apply. The present album is apparently made up from examples collected in and around Bedfont in Middlesex (other places identified include Norwood and Stanwell Moor) but also included is one sample from Germany. As a whole it compares very favourably with the commercially produced 'nature-printed' works of the period, as exemplified by the work of Henry Bradbury and Constantin von Ettinghausen, but is also a very fine example of a genre that has a long history stretching back to the fifteenth century.
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