?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000
(BOTANICAL.) John Fisk Allen; and William Sharp. Victoria Regia; or the Great Water Lily of America. 6 chromolithographed plates, letterpress title, dedication to Caleb Cope, 12 pages of text (numbered [5]-16), and terminal leaf with index, plate list, note and errata. Imperial folio, 26 3/4x21 1/4 inches, modern cloth-backed portfolio with high-quality facsimile of the original printed board pasted to upper cover; contents professionally conserved, on linen guards, and with archival consolidation to the edges of text leaves; plates with bright colors and a few minor but skilled corner repairs. Boston: for the author by Dutton & Wentworth, 1854
William Sharp's large-format chromolithographed plates of the life phases of exotic giant flowering water lilies are some of the finest botanical images ever produced in America. They are also some of the earliest to employ the multi-stone printing process. "One of the most striking of American botanical books, this is also among the most successful examples of early chromolithography… in the large water lily plates of Victoria Regia, Sharp printed colors with a delicacy of execution and technical brilliance never before achieved in the United States" -- Reese, Stamped With a National Character.
