Dec 10, 2024 - Sale 2689

Sale 2689 - Lot 192

Price Realized: $ 2,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(BOTANICAL.) Deborah Passmore Gillingham. [Watercolor album of American lily and magnolia varieties]. 54 full-sheet watercolor portraits of botanical specimens on JWhatman 1869/1870 watermarked wove and other papers, each with a preceding title leaf in an outstanding stylized or calligraphic design. Folio, 18x13½ inches, contemporary gilt morocco, well-worn and needs recased; foxing, occasional small edge tears or chips. Np, circa 1870

Additional Details

A historiated frontispiece of sorts quoting Matthew 6:28 - "They toil not, neither do they spin", opens this fantastic volume of original botanical watercolors by amateur American illustrator Deborah Passmore Gillingham. Her brushstrokes are superb and beautifully capture the colors and depths of each flowering variety.

The album has been reproduced in a private publication: John Duncan, Lilies & Magnolias: Botanical Watercolors of Deborah Passmore Gillingham, Schiffer Publishing, 2010.