Original Botanical Prints · Orchids
Stelzner's Laelia Orchid: Hand-Colored Lithograph by Louis van Houtte, 1855
No. f_41539572185524.5 × 33 cm
Close-ups
Framed and on the wall
Frame and rooms are illustrations of how the print could look, drawn to its real size; it is sold unframed unless the description says otherwise.
Orchids
Stelzner's Laelia Orchid: Hand-Colored Lithograph by Louis van Houtte, 1855
$270
€240 · £205
Original print, not a reproduction
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- Date
- 1855
- Sheet size
- 13 × 9.6 in (33 × 24.5 cm)
- Condition
- Good. The condition of this genuine antique is good, given age, with the central fold line being a characteristic of its original publication. General age-related toning and/or occasional minor defects from handling.
- Collection
- Orchids
- Era
- 1850 and after, Chromolithographs and plant hunters
- Stock no.
- f_41539572
Stelzner's laelia, an orchid from Brazil, in a hand-colored lithograph from Louis Van Houtte's Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe, 1855. The plate is lettered "Laelia Stelzneriana Rchb. Fil." with "Brésil" and "Serre chaude" (the warm greenhouse) beneath, and the Van Houtte imprint appears in tiny type at the lower left.
The plant is drawn whole, growing from a small tuft of moss at the foot of the sheet. Tall, slender pseudobulbs, striped and papery with age, rise in several stems, each topped by a broad, dark green leathery leaf that arches across the upper part of the page. Two large flowers are shown, one in the foreground and one partly hidden behind it. The petals and sepals are long and white, with a gently waved edge, and the broad lip is a rich magenta-purple fringed with white, with a pale greenish yellow throat.
The color is laid on in fine graded washes, and the leaves are modeled in light and shadow against the plain paper. The sheet carries a central vertical fold from its original binding.
Laelia was a favorite genus among orchid growers of the 1850s, when Brazilian species were being sent to Ghent and other European nurseries in numbers, and the "serre chaude" note records the heated glasshouse the plant needed.
