Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America - photo 1
Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America - photo 2
Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America - photo 3
Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America - photo 4

Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America

Sold
$ 35 280
Auction dateClassic
26.05.2022 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 752909
Lot 229 | Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America
Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of AmericaJohn Fisk Allen and William Sharp, 1854ALLEN, John Fisk (1807-1876) and William SHARP, lithographer (1803-1875). Victoria Regia; or The Great Water Lily of America. With a Brief Account of its Discovery and Introduction into Cultivation. Boston: printed and published for the author by Dutton & Wentworth, 1854.A masterpiece of color lithography, Allen's rare work on the giant lilies of the Amazon river. "In the large water lily plates of Victoria Regia, Sharp printed colors with a delicacy of execution and technical brilliance never before achieved in the United States" (Stamped with a National Character).From the beginnings of chromolithography, which appeared in France and England around 1835, William Sharp was one of the very first to try this technique and is credited with bringing it to America in 1839. He emigrated from England and settled as a lithographer in Boston; it was there that he particularly developed the process and was one of its pioneers. In 1854 the publication of the Great Water Lily plates was completed; in order to obtain the most accurate color possible, four lithographic stones were used for each plate. This concern for execution makes them count among the most beautiful chromolithographs ever made in America.The giant water lilies, discovered along the banks of the Amazon, had already been the subject of three books, published in England: Victoria Regia by John Lindley (1837), Description of the Victoria Regia (1847) by William Jackson Hooker, and Victoria Regia, or Illustrations of the Royal Water Lily (1851) by Walter Hood Fitch. In order to describe as accurately as possible the growth and flowering of this extraordinary plant, John Fisk Allen, horticulturist and already author of a renowned book on viticulture, sowed a seed in his own garden in Salem and carefully followed its development from January to July 1853. The long-awaited plant finally bloomed on July 21, offering an impressive spectacle lasting several hours which he describes in detail in this work. "In this series of plates the gigantic flower seems to open cinematographically before our very eyes ...". Nissen BBI 16; Great Flower Books (1990) p.69; Pritzel 104; Hunt Printmaking in the Service of Botany 56; Oak Spring Flora 106; Stamped with a National Character 19; Stafleu & Cowan TL2, 85.Broadsheet folio (690 x 546mm). 6 chromolithographed plates by William Sharp (some dustsoiling and a little toning/freckling, pl. 5 with a small area with surface adhesions). Original printed boards (neatly rebacked with cloth, rubbed, slightly warped with old dampstain, minor soiling to endleaves). Custom solander box. Provenance: Massachusetts Horticultural Society (bookplate with withdrawal stamp, a few pencil markings on title).
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