This exquisite lithograph by Deborah Griscom Passmore is from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Pomological Yearbook, which published lithographed versions of the watercolors they commissioned.
These original watercolors are held in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection. Originally they were intended as documents of produce to be reproduced & published in te USDA's journals. They are such superb & exquisite works of Natural History that they are treasured & exhibited & exhibited as such.
The Artist:
Deborah Griscom Passmore (1840–1911) was a botanical illustrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture who specialized in paintings of fruit. Her work is now preserved in the USDA's Pomological Watercolor Collection, and she has been called the best of the early USDA artists.[1] She rose to lead the USDA staff artists, and she became the most prolific of the group, contributing one-fifth of the 7500 paintings in the Pomological Watercolor Collection. (wiki)
"The watercolors and drawings of fruit by these artists are among the most beautiful of early American art, no less amazing than the landscape paintings of the same era by the likes of Thomas Cole and his student Frederic Church. Though these artists had widely divergent subjects—towering mountains and flowing water on the one hand, versus seedpods, blossoms, and fruit on the other — they shared a desire for scientific accuracy and transcendent awe for their subjects. Americans’ appreciation for wilderness seemed to have paralleled their enjoyment of the apple" (Linda Hoffman, Apples, Art, and Spirit)
The Publication: The USDA produced (and still produces) many publications. Biodiversity Heritage Library shows many of these scanned online, including their amazing plates. So this one likely came from "Annual reports of the Department of Agriculture for 1897".
The Lithographer & Printer: A. Hoen & Co. was a Baltimore, Maryland-based lithography firm founded by Edward Weber in the 1840s as E. Weber & Company. When August Hoen took it over following Weber's death, he changed the name and built the company into one of the most prominent in the industry at the time. In 1877, Hoen entered a print produced by his patented Lithocaustic process in the Centennial Exposition. This work, entitled "The Continentals" was "commended for excellence in chromo-lithographic art" by the judges.
The Technique: These are Stone Chromo-Lithographs, where the image for each color was drawn by hand on heavy slabs of limestone in a water-repellant wax or 'grease'. During printing, water is sponged over the drawn image, which is absorbed into the stone.
When the stone is inked with a roller, it sticks only to the water-repellant drawing, & leaves the bare wet stone clean. The print is then transferred to the paper laid atop the stone & run by hand through a press.
The process is very involved, especially the colored prints, where multiple stones for each color had to line up perfectly with each successive imprint to register perfectly on the page.
These particular lithographs are unusual in that they were produced using a hand-applied precursor of the halftone screen, which is now ubiquitous in the machine-prints spit out by today's offset presses.
August Hoen's patented 'Lithocaustic' method etched the stone with a mix of citric acid and gum arabic so that the lithographer could see the progress of shaded patterns as they were etched into the stone. He continued to explore methods of producing fine gradations in shading. In 1880, August Hoen was granted several patents for a methods of producing halftone prints using lithography.
Text Page: I don't possess the text page(s) for these USDA plates.
Condition: This one appears to be in near Excellent condition, on a creamy, white, thick paper, with some age-toning to the paper & typical antique character. The colors & detail remain sharp & beautiful.
These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as text-offsetting, foxing, spotting, minor faint creases, etc, expected with the character & charm of antique prints.
These rare, fine antique handmade bookplates are a usually from an extremely limited original printing during their short heyday, in the 18th & 19th centuries, before modern offset lithography & the dreaded half-tone screen rendered hand-printed engravings & lithographs obsolete.
The few examples of these originals which have been dis-bound from their highly valued antiquarian volumes into their constituent plates, are much coveted & collected for their incredible craft, beauty, artistry & history across generations, generally for eventual framing & displaying. Each one is unique. These are not reproductions, these are the real deal, & very rare.
Occasionally light vintage pencil markings by a collector or dealer are noted in the margins, usually by the original print dealer for cataloguing, these are meant to be erased before framing. Please examine the photos & details carefully.
Shipping: Multiple prints combine into one USPS Flat-Rate envelope. If you'd like to combine & need more time to choose, please send a message & we'll do our best to oblige. If you're assessed multiple shipping for one combined package, we'll endeavor to refund any overage asap.