Description

C I R Q L A R Original antique prints, books, maps and atlases Name Of Work Cabinet Fruit And Flower Plates Colored From Nature... Author/Artist Stecher Lithograph Co. Rochester NY . Date of Publication Published c. 1880. Type of Print Original color lithograph plates bound into a contemporary salesmans sample binding. There is a reference to S.N. Kidd Landscape Gardener, Butler PA on the front cover. Size of Image App. 6" X 9". Condition In overall very good to excellent condition. Newly/recently rebound with new marbleized end pages. The front end page has some old tape on verso and one plate is detached but fully present. Description We are pleased to offer this beautiful and complete bound volume of a salesmans sample of ca. 115 fruit and flower plates published by the Stecher Lithograph Co, Rochester NY. Please note that the 115 quantity could be off either way by one or two. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Rochester, New York, was a leading American nursery center. Auxiliary to the nursery businesses, there developed allied enterprises, one of which was the production of colored fruit and flower prints designed to aid nurserymen and their travelling salesmen sell plants. This business in nurserymen's plates, as these prints were also termed, flourished until changes in marketing nursery products and the increasing use of colored illustrations in nursery catalogues caused its decline. By the early years of this century, the production and use of these plates was ending. A typical nurserymen's color plate was approximately 9 by 12 inches or the smaller "pocket size" of 6 by 9 inches, which was introduced in the early 1870's. Each pictured a specimen of fruit, flower, shrub, ornamental tree, or, occasionally, a hardy vegetable such as rhubarb. Under the illustration would be its name, perhaps a brief description of its attributes (as much for the benefit of the salesman as the potential customer), and the name (and often city) of the producer of the plate. These plates were generally printed on heavy paper stock to withstand wear. A nursery firm or salesman could purchase plates in a variety of ways: individually, as bound assortments, or as collections in portfolios. If he wished he could select an assortment illustrating the stock he was selling and have it bound. Often he would select plates produced by various firms. If he wished to change the assortment or replace worn or damaged plates, special bindings could be had that made such substitutions easy. The earlier plates were either hand-colored lithographs or a variation of the theorem technique of using stencils with details added freehand. All of these plates were bright and colorful; some had simplified designs which were almost abstract in quality. The first Rochester chromolithographic company began in 1871, and sometime thereafter local firms began to use this method to produce less expensive plates. For at least a part of the 1870's D. M. Dewey carried a small line of inexpensive wood engravings printed in colors by George Frauenberger. By the end of the century, plates were also created by the photomechanical reproduction of photographs. Fruit and flower plates were not inexpensive. In 1860, for example, Thomas Wright was charging 35¢ each for lots of 100. In 1872, Dewey's plates were 25¢ and 37½¢ each for the regular-size plate (9 by 11½ inches) which could be trimmed to smaller sizes, such as 6 by 8 inches. In the Rochester Lithographing and Printing Company's large 1888 catalogue (essentially D. M. Dewey's last catalogue), "hand-made" (stencilled) plates cost 18¢ in the large size (9 x 11 inches) and 8¢ in the pocket size (6 by 9 inches). Chromolithographic plates cost 5¢, and the company's few "photograph" plates ("a decided novelty in fruit plates") cost 12¢ each. They would create plates from a supplied specimen at $1 for the first copy and the "regular price for all after." Their "Cheap Plate Book" contained 40 plates and sold for $3.50, while their regular plate books contained 70 plates and sold for $7. Although fruit and flower plates were produced in other places, Rochester appears to have been a center for the business. D. M. Dewey laid claim to originating the concept in the late 1850's by adapting, as he later said, "the colored fruit plate to the practical use of nurserymen, in selling their stock." By the 1880's and into the 1890's, more than a half dozen firms were active in Rochester. Some, such as J. W. Thompson & Co., produced only one type of plate, while others such as the Rochester Lithographing Company produced plates using several of the techniques. The major nineteenth-century Rochester plate firms were D. M. Dewey, the Rochester Lithographing and Printing Company (with which Dewey merged in 1888), and the Stecher Lithographing Company. A second group of somewhat smaller firms was (in roughly chronological order) E. Darrow & Brother, D. W. Sargent, J. W. Thompson & Co., George Frauenberger, W. H. Medcalf & Co., C. M. Search & Co., Karle & Co., Charles F. Nicholson, M. Brunswick & Co., and Vredenburg & Co. A third group (of which some were perhaps just distributors)-Lorenzo Kellogg, Thomas Wright, Mrs. Julia Van De Mark, George T. Fish, and Austin P. Baldwin & Co.-was so small that it is difficult to evaluate their role today. In the following section a short historical sketch is given for each of the producers/distributors listed in the three groups above. The Rochester city directories have been invaluable in compiling this section, for beginning in 1871 and continuing into the twentieth century their classified business section contained the entry "Fruit Plates" and, usually, the entry "Nurserymen's Plates." The alphabetical entries and advertisements in the directories have also been invaluable. Useful too have been the microfilms of Rochester newspapers at the Rochester Public Library and the University of Rochester Library, the several guides to Rochester industries that appeared in the 1880's, and the records of Mt. Hope Cemetery, where many of these people rest today. The study is made difficult by the fact that for many of the producers of plates, be they booksellers or lithographers, this was only one aspect of their activities. Thus plates were often not specifically mentioned in advertisements or other published references to the firms. Another difficulty is that little of their ephemeral material, such as catalogues, circulars, and price lists, which would be so invaluable today in studying their history, has survived. And, except for a few chromolithographic plates with copyright dates, there is no way to readily and precisely date plates and thus draw conclusions about the companies and industry. We encourage you to contact us with any particular questions you might have. Thank you for looking and please be sure and look at our other auctions for other fine works by Audubon from the first as well as the 1860 editions of the Birds Of America . We also have other architectural, natural history plates as well as original maps, all guaranteed original. We do not use the eBay check-out system for invoicing so it is not necessary to email us at auction end. You will receive an email from Paypal letting you know the particular payment options available to you. We will also send you an email summarizing your winning bids along with one combined postal charge. We will email you this summary within 24 hours after the auction's end. Cirqlar is a SquareTrade seller in good standing and we will do everything we can make this a positive experience for you. We don't hold checks for clearance (we have yet to receive a bad check after over 25,000 transactions!). Again, we will be happy to combine purchases to save on your shipping costs. News flash! We are now using USPS for our North American shipments. Shipments are easy to track, and, well, frankly we have only lost one singular package out of the tens of thousands of packages we have sent. Good job USPS! If you are one of our International friends, please contact us with your particulars (name of country, insurance requirements if any) so that we might get as accurate a quote as possible to get your purchase to you in a timely fashion. Please note that we now have (finally, mercifully) a legitimate "about me" section where you can find more information about who we are and what we do as well as more tips on collecting prints and the various types of printing techniques that have been used over the years. In addition, we have hundreds of rare prints and colorplate books, maps and atlases at set prices. We have recently been fortunate enough to acquire, for example, the original watercolors from Lewin's "Birds of Great Britain". We also have listed several prints from Shaw and Nodder's "The Naturalist's Miscellany", flower prints from Curtis' "Flora Londinensis", P.J. Redoute's "Les Liliacees". Please also check out our ebay listings for some phenomenal Abbeville edition elephant folio restrikes of Audubon's "Birds Of America" which are what many refer to as the preeminent 20th century facsimile edition of this important work. We will be updating this frequently. We are committed to offering the very best antique prints available with over the top superior service. Click "here" for more information about us. Thank you for looking. <img src="https://ti2.auctiva.com/web/aswCredit.gif" border="0"><br><a href="https://www.auctiva.com/?how=scLnk1" target="_blank"><img src="https://ti2.auctiva.com/images/sc1line1.gif" border="0"></a> <div style="text-align:center"><a style="text-decoration:none" href="https://mostpopular.sellathon.com/?id=AC951964"><img src="https://www.sellathon.com/Resources/Images/countercredit.gif" border="0"></a></div>