Thomas Moore (British, 1821-1887), Two nature-printed plates of ferns, comprising lastrea therypteris and polysticum aculeatum, plate X and plate XXIX from the ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, printed by Henry Branbury and published by Bradbury & Evans, London 1855-1856.
NOTE ( as found ) both with scattered small stains.
MEASUREMENTS:
Frame 28.25" H x 21.25" W x .75" D
Image 21.25" H x 14.25" W
Moore's important work on nature printing was one of the first of the genre printed in England. The beautifully executed plates were produced under the direction of Henry Bradbury, England's first nature printer, and are considered to be among the finest pieces of nature printing ever completed. The plates were produced "... by passing the plant, under pressure, between a plate of soft lead from which an electrotype could be made" (Blunt). As a result, they recorded the smallest details of flowers and the finest venations of leaves. Bradbury, whose father was of the publishing house Bradbury & Evans, studied at the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna. His interest in printing extended to "... the production of bank notes and the security of paper money, on which he discoursed at the Royal Institute" (DNB) and to the history of printing. He had many ideas for lavish and extensive works, including nature-printed books on fungi and trees and a work on the graphic arts of the nineteenth century, but none of these were ever realised. He died in 1860 at the age of twenty-nine.
