Description
Edward J. Lowe's Ferns: British and Exotic
These wonderful chromolithographs are from Edward J. Lowe's Ferns: British and Exoticpublished by Groombridge & Sons in London in 1862. Monographs, books concentrating on a single subject, were much the trend of the 19th century. Following the publication of monographs on several other plant genus, the fern finally achieved fame in the mid to late 1800s. Lowe's work was one of the early publications on the subject. It was Lowe's botanical expertise and funding that produced the work, but A. F. Lyon was the artist for the work, and Benjamin Fawcett's printing talent created the plates. Fawcett was a well-known color-printer of the time. His technique of using multiple engravings from the end-grain of wood, known as chromoxylography, was used on this work. It was one of the first large publications to be printed in color with no hand-finishing.