- Title:
- Umbelliferae (Buphorum rotundifolium, Lo.)
- Object name(s):
- Brief description:
- Umbelliferae printed in green and black.
- Collection:
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Associated concept:
- Prints
- Associated concept:
- Printmaking techniques
- Associated concept:
- Botanical art
- Current reproduction location:
- https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EL5385/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg
- Location type:
- Thumbnail
- Dimension:
- Height
- Dimension measurement unit:
- mm
- Dimension value:
- 570
- Dimension:
- Width
- Dimension measurement unit:
- mm
- Dimension value:
- 380
- Material:
- printing ink
- Material:
- paper (fiber product)
- Object history note:
- The South Kensington Museum register refers to this acquisition (14765) as "A few leaves from the newly invented process of Nature printing by Bradbury and Evans. 1854. Price 21 Shillings". The same source lists the process as 'Phytoglyphy' - from two Greek words for 'nature' and 'carving'. In this process two sheets of metal of unequal hardness are used to 'sandwich' the object to be nature printed - here the leaf, which leaves its impression in the softer plate. The Bradbury and Evans technique was in fact the subject of litigation between the British company and the Imperial Printing Works, Vienna, which claimed prior invention. William Bradbury's son Henry had been sent to see the process in Vienna and was accused of industrial espionage by Alois Auer the Viennese director. Auer published a broadside condemning Bradbury entitled (in abbreviation): 'Conduct of a Young Englishman named Henry Bradbury [...] after his return to his Native Country, in opposition to the Acknowledgments of Foreign Countries concerning the natural-printing process [..] the Conduct of Bradbury ascertained by the members of the Imperial Printing Office'.
- Object name:
- Object number:
- 14765:20
- Object production date:
- 1854
- Date - association:
- printed
- Date - earliest / single:
- 1854-01-01
- Date - latest:
- 1854-12-31
- Object production organisation:
- Bradbury & Evans
- Organisation's association:
- printers and publishers
- Object production place:
- London
- Place association:
- published
- Physical description:
- Umbelliferae printed in green and black.
- Reproduction number:
- 2010EL5385
- Reproduction number:
- 2006AN2498
- Responsible department/section:
- PDP
- Technique:
- nature printing
- Technique:
- Nature print
- Text reason:
- Collections online record
- Text:
- This illustration is an example of nature printing, which involves sandwiching the specimen between a polished steel and a lead plate and passing them through a roller press to leave an impression of the object in the lead plate. The lead plate can then be used as a printing plate or is more commonly electrotyped, whereby a copper layer is ‘grown’ onto a mould taken from the original, placed in a solution of copper sulphate with an electric current passed through it. Although modelled on the actual plant, nature prints lack the illusion of three dimensions conveyed by a conventional illustration, and in fact resemble flattened herbarium specimens. The image was printed in two colours applied on the same plate, a method called à la poupée (named from the French word for doll after the small doll-shaped dabbers used to apply ink to the plate); the colours blend where they meet, rather than overlap and under a magnifier some of the leaves reveal a small amount of black ink over the green. Henry Bradbury (1829–60) issued his first efforts in nature printing in 1854 as a volume 'showing the application of the art for the reproduction of botanical and other natural objects with a delicacy of detail and truthfulness unobtainable by any other known method of printing...' He had studied under Alois Auer (1813–69) at the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna and seen the technique used there.
- Text reason:
- Summary description
Persistent shareable link for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/1eb3ef29-df98-3f97-adf6-68000f84185e
Use licence for this record: CC BY-NC
Attribution for this record: https://museumdata.uk/objects/1eb3ef29-df98-3f97-adf6-68000f84185e, Victoria and Albert Museum, CC BY-NC
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