Jakob Trew Plantae Selectae Plate 3, Red Pineapple

Trew Plantae selectae, Pl. 3, Red Pineapple

Original Antique Print

21 1/8" x 14 1/4"(approximate)
1750—1773
Hand-colored engraving with select gold lettering

Plantae selectae quarum imagines ad exemplaria naturalia Londini, in hortis curiosorum nutrita

A rare and exquisite folio, Plantae Selectae (1750-73) was the result of a fruitful collaboration between Nuremberg physician Dr. Christopher Jacob Trew, and preeminent botanical draughtsman Georg Dionysius Ehret. Comprising one hundred hand-colored engravings rendered exclusively by Ehret, the folio captures the rarest and most exotic plant species known to Europe at the time including bananas, pineapples, magnolias, and other foreign specimens. On each plate, gold leaf illuminates the plant titles and a scrolling cursive script composes the ledger at the bottom margin of the page. Likewise, Ehret's sophisticated linework renders the form of the botanical specimen while gouache and watercolor lend the plant chromaticity and dimension.

Writing to Trew in 1754, distinguished botanist Bernard de Jussieu exclaimed of the publication: “The coloured drawings of plants which you have published surpass in beauty and exactitude everything that has appeared in this genre till now...” (Erlangen, Jussieu to Trew, No. 8). Combining fidelity to nature with great beauty, Ehret’s prints inaugurated “The Golden Age of Botanical Art.” Moreover, in his delineations of the plants, Ehret paid special attention to rendering the stamen and pistils which were soon thereafter recognized to be of paramount importance in plant classification according to the Linnaean system of taxonomy. In fact, Carl Linneaus, the renowned Swedish botanist whose system of binomial nomenclature would dominate botany for centuries, shared a lifelong friendship with Ehret. “The walls of Linnaeus’s bedroom were (and still are) papered with illustrations from Ehret’s…Plantae Selectae” (Calmann 1977, 51).

A laborious production that took 23 years to complete, the illustrations for Plantae Selectae were based on the latest botanical imports from the tropics that were housed in London’s wealthiest most luxurious gardens. While Ehret attentively rendered the plants, Trew wrote the accompanying botanical treatise elucidating the foreign specimens. Upon issue, Plantae Selectae was hailed as a masterpiece among flower books, and Ehret was claimed by some “to have been the finest botanical artist, not only of his age, but of all time” (Sitwell 1990, 14).

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