Hand Colored Botanical Engravings

Hand Colored Botanical Engravings, no signature to piece, verso reads ‘ Hand Colored Wood engraving from John Gerard’s The Herball or General Historie of Plants’, measures 22 1/2 x 12 5/8 inches, window measures 19 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, surface wear to frame, professionally framed and double matted in beige, not examined out of frame. John Gerard, (born 1545, Nantwich, Cheshire, Eng.—died February 1612, London), English herbalist, author of The Herball, or generall historie of plantes (1597). In 1596 he compiled a list of the plants growing in his garden. Published in 1597, his celebrated Herball, containing more than 1,000 species, became the first plant catalog. Although Gerard took almost complete credit for the work, it may actually have been based on a translation of Stirpium historiae pemptades sex (1583), by the Flemish botanist Rembertus Dodoens. Of the more than 1,800 woodcuts illustrating the book, only 16 were done by Gerard. The remainder came from Jacob Theodorus Tabernaemontanus’ Eicones plantarum seu stirpium (1590). (Brittanica)