AFA 18th Anniversary

Life with Bird’s Nest , which was then part of the famous Czernin collection (today in the Scottish National Gallery). 1 Until the late nineteenth century, most floral illustrations were printed in black and white, and sometimes hand painted for lavishly illustrated botanical books. Printing in colored inks allowed for more vibrancy than hand coloring. It is no surprise that some of the earliest experiments with color printing produced botanical and floral illustrations. The workshop of Dutch printmaker and inventor Johannes Teyler (1648–ca. 1709) used a pioneering color printing technique to create etchings of fashionable f lower still life bouquets, published for public consumption. A Bouquet in a Black Urn and A Bouquet in a Brown Urn (Figs. 3, 4) demonstrate Teyler’s innovative method of printing “à la poupée,” where colored ink was selectively applied to the copper plate. These and hundreds of other prints produced in Teyler’s workshop represented the first flourishing of true intaglio color printing in the West. 2 Like Pichler, Teyler’s workshop of engravers and designers often took their inspiration from existing paintings. These prints imitate flower bouquets composed by Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636–1699), a Flemish painter whose designs juxtaposed foreign and familiar flora, such as the tropical pink mallow and northern rose found in the Black Urn . However, the printed colors did not necessarily match Monnoyer’s original designs, and Teyler’s plates were not inked uniformly for subsequent impressions. 3 Thus, Teyler’s technique made each impression unique, creating a “printed painting” despite using a reproductive medium. Teyler’s prints, with their dazzling colors, exotic subjects and beautiful designs were even collected internationally in his own lifetime. The portability and affordability of prints allowed for the circulation of floral still lifes not only throughout Europe but also in the American colonies. Eighteenth-centur y American advertisements, inventories, and journals record the importation, sale, and display of such prints, and Winterthur holds several examples. 4 Colored prints in the Dutch tradition appear in the 1740 journal of Colonel William Stephens as he recorded the sale of Thomas Christie’s household goods in Savannah, noting “a few common Dutch printed Pictures coloured on Paper.”  5 We can trace a set of Dutch flower still life prints from its creation in Europe to its display in colonial America. In 1730, British nurseryman Robert Furber commissioned Flemish still life artist Pieter Casteels III (1648–1749) to paint twelve canvases commemorating the months of the year in flowers. 6 A commercial venture, Furber had engravings made after the paintings and sold each luxury set as both a decorative calendar and advertisement for his sale of plant seeds. The prints were so popular that copies appeared within a few years to meet the high demand for fanciful flower pictures. One such copy, Flora , published by John Bowles in London in 1745, featured a set of thirteen etchings after Casteels’ original designs, with one bouquet per month, plus a title page introducing the pleasures of the garden (Figs. 5, 6). Each print labeled and grouped the flowers according to the month in 18th Anniversary 188 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Figs. 3, 4: Johannes Teyler (1648–ca. 1709), A Bouquet in a Black Urn and A Bouquet in a Brown Urn, after Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636–1699), late-seventeenth century. Etchings printed in colors, 6½ x 4½ inches. Winterthur Museum (2017.0005.001-002, details).