Wildbalsamkraut - Balsaminelutea

Article description

Original copper engraving, finely hand colored. This finely hand colored emblemata engraving was published 1719 in Bernhard Valentini's herbal,Des vollständigen und Reformirten Kräuter=Buchs' at Anton Heinscheidt in Frankfurt am Main. It depicts a combination of a plant with a typical German landscape between 1650 to 1719. These allegorical emblemata engravings were composed and engraved in a very similar style as the famous allegorical illustrations, which were published by Matthaeus Merian for Ludwig Prince of Anhalt's ,Der Fruchtbringende Gesellschafft' Nahmen, Vorhaben, Gemälde und Wörter' in 1646. In this series for every of the 400 members of the,Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft' a unique allegoric engraving was created. It seems that Bernhard Valentini either aquired from the Merian heirs inventory or from an unknown source copper plates with these allegories and used those then in his own herbal or he arranged on his own them to be created. He did this already prior with the copper plates of the flower book by de Bry, which he used in his flowerbook and which he extended then in the same style. All of these allegories are showing a combination of baroque garden scenes, landscapes, city views or castles. Each of these decorative allegories is depicting a plant specimen in front of a topographical background. This engraving is printed into a page with descriptive German text for this plant specimen.

Handcolored copper engraving by the Merian family, published by Bernhard Valentini.