six (6) very fine original ''Nature Printed'' ferns by Henry Bradbury (English, 1821-1887) printed London 1859. Nature Printing was a laborous and expensive process designed for accuracy, few impressions.
FIRST EDITION IN BOOK FORM. BRADBURY'S CHEF D'OEUVRE -- THE FIRST FULLY-REALISED NATURE-PRINTED BOOK PUBLISHED IN BRITAIN. Henry Bradbury was the eldest son of William Bradbury of Bradbury & Evans, and had learnt of nature-printing (the technique of taking impressions from leaves, plants, or other life-forms and manufacturing a printing-plate from this impression) whilst studying at the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna, where Alois Auer, the director, had patented the process with his associate Andreas Worring in October 1852. Bradbury returned to London where he patented an improved version of the process (without, according to Auer, sufficiently acknowledging his indebtedness to Auer and Worring; Lindley does, however, record their contribution in his preface to this work). The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland was published in 17 monthly parts between June 1855 and September 1856 and issued in book form in half morocco in 1856 at a price of £6.6s. The text by Thomas Moore (curator of the Chelsea botanic garden and co-editor of Gardener's Chronicle) was edited by the eminent botanist and horticulturist Lindley. Although The Ferns was preceded by Bradbury's A Few Leaves from the Newly-Invented Process of Nature-Printing (1854), which he considered an advertisement, The Ferns was the first substantial nature-printed books published in Britain, and is described in Lindley's preface as 'the first English attempt at applying Nature-Printing to Botanical Science'. Bradbury went on to publish W.H. Johnstone and A. Croall's The Nature-Printed British Seaweeds (London: 1859-60), and to plan a further four natture-printed works.
MEASUREMENTS:
30.25" H x 23.25" W x 1.25" D frames
Image
21" H x 14" W
