May, from Twelve Months of Flowersn.d.
A lavish bouquet of the flowers that bloom in May fills this hand-coloured engraving, each blossom numbered and keyed to a list of names. More about this work
About this work
A lavish bouquet of the flowers that bloom in May fills this hand-coloured engraving, each blossom numbered and keyed to a list of names. It comes from Twelve Months of Flowers, published in 1730 by Robert Furber, a nurseryman in Kensington, who used the series as an illustrated catalogue of the plants he sold. Henry Fletcher engraved the plates after paintings by the Flemish artist Pieter Casteels, and the colour was added by hand, making them among the most ambitious botanical prints of their day.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
A work made of engraving in black ink with opaque and translucent watercolor on cream laid paper.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Engraving
- Lines cut directly into a metal plate with a steel burin, which makes them swell and taper. It took years to master, and for centuries it was how paintings travelled as pictures.
- Watercolour
- Pigment in gum arabic, thinned with water and laid in transparent washes. Nothing white is painted: the light is the paper showing through.
- Laid paper
- Handmade on a mould of close-set wires, which leave fine parallel lines you can see when the sheet is held to the light.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1946.402
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
More by Henry Fletcher
All their works
Close in colour
