Erica purpurea, fine Heath engraving. Henry Andrews c1805

$200.00

Beautiful, exquisitely detailed original antique print, drawn and etched into a copperplate, with each print hand-coloured “from living plants only”, with fine dissections of the flower below the main engraving, by English botanist and skilled botanical illustrator, Henry C. Andrews (1770-1830), for publication in his finest work, the superb monograph Coloured Engravings of Heaths, published in London between 1794 and 1830.

Focussing on the genus Erica, introduced to Great Britain from South Africa during the first half of the nineteenth century, this publication greatly improved worldwide knowledge of Ericas, and Andrews's superb illustrations surely would have contributed to Ericas becoming the mania of nineteenth century horticulture in Britain. 

Henry C. Andrews (1770-1830) described himself as botanical artist and engraver. He lived in Knightsbridge and married Anne Kennedy, the daughter of Hammersmith nurseryman, John Kennedy, who assisted Andrews with his descriptions of the plants he illustrated. It was assumed that Henry C. Andrews's middle name was Charles until his marriage registration showed it to be Cranke. H.C. Andrews was multi-talented. He was a naturalist, an artist, an engraver, a colourist, a publisher, and he taught drawing from nature as well as the art of etching, to private students. Andrews’s Botanists’ Repository was the first serious rival to the Kew publication Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. Not surprisingly, a botanist employed by Kew in 1906, W. Botting Hemsley, was critical of Andrews’s early illustrations – but Hemsley later agreed that  Andrews' later work was indeed quite superior.

The text page is available – with description and taxonomy in Latin and English. Page size is 41cm x 25cm (16" x 9 3/4")

Out of stock