AFA 18th Anniversary

2018 Antiques & Fine Art 189 which they bloomed. Many of these calendar sets depicting Casteels’ designs hung in colonial American homes, including the Massachusetts bedroom of Andrew Belcher inventoried in 1771. 7 In addition to their decorative function, these images fed the curiosity of both European and American consumers. The print media allowed for a wider circulation of scientif ic ideas, encouraging amateurs in the technical study of botanical subjects. A 1756 advertisement from the Pennsylvania Gazette demonstrated both the scientific and ornamental appeal of floral prints: “This Day is published, A Catalogue of a curious collection of Prints: consisting of several hundred representations of Trees, Shrubs, Plants, Herbs, Fruits, Flowers &c. all in their prime state: Delineated from the real plants, &c. and neatly coloured after nature. Being well adapted for furniture, and ornamenting of apartments, closets &c., like-wise fit for japanning, or to serve for patterns for drawing embroidery &c. divided into lots . . .”  8 Thus, printed still lifes could be considered accurate, if exotic; each bud rendered naturalistically even if the arrangement proved artificial. Prized for their duality of technical description and aesthetic invention, these images contained flora from all over Europe, America and even the East. In particular, the commercial nature of the Casteels commission reflected the global scope of botanical study and agricultural trade, and the importation of the associated prints also embodied this exchange. 1. Jan van Huysum (1682–1749), Flower Still Life with Bird’s Nest. Oil on copper, 31 ⁹⁄₁₆ x 24 ³⁄₁₆ inches. Source painting for Pichler’s print seen in figure 1. National Galleries of Scotland (NG 2868). For image, see https://www.nationalgalleries. org/art-and-artists/128298/flower-still-life-birds-nest 2. Simon Turner, “Opus typo-chromaticum: The Colour Prints of Johannes Teyler,” in Printing in Colour 1400–1700, eds. Ad Stijnman and Elizabeth Savage (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 196–206. 3. Compare with impressions in the British Museum (1871,1209.5125), Library of Congress (LCCN 49040185, pp. 91, 97), and Rijksmuseum (RP-P-1955-288). 4. For more on the circulation of European prints in colonial America, see Joan Dolmetsch, “European Prints in Eighteenth-Century America,” Antiques 101:5 (May 1972): 858–63; E. McSherry Fowble, “To Please Every Taste: Prints for the American Market,” in Two centuries of prints in America, 1680–1880: a selective catalogue of the Winterthur Museum collection (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1987), 3–31. 5. Allen Daniel Candler et al., Stephens’ Journal, 1737–1740, Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, vol. 4 (Atlanta: Franklin Print. and Pub. Co., 1904), 450. 6. The twelve paintings sold at Christie’s, New York, on May 25, 2005. 7. E. McSherry Fowble, To Please Every Taste: Eighteenth-Century Prints from the Winterthur Museum (Alexandria, Va.: Art Services International, 1991, 174–177), 224–227. 8. “This Day is published, A Catalogue of a curious collection of Prints…,” Pennsylvania Gazette, September 9, 1756, 3. Elizabeth Simmons is a doctoral candidate in the department of art history at the University of Delaware. Previously, she served as the Graduate Assistant in the Museum Collections Department at Winterthur where she researched these prints as part of an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to digitize the collection of works on paper. Figs. 5, 6: J. Clark and Thomas Bowles (ca. 1712–ca. 1753), JUNE and MARCH , after Pieter Casteels III (1648–1749), 1745. Line etched with minimal burin work and hand colored, 14 x 10 inches. Winterthur Museum (1966.1048.003 and 1966.1048.006).