Summer Inspirations...

To create a similar look see a sample of our inventory below. For information and price contact us directly. Please note we have additional images to choose from as well.






First two images are from 'Mrs. Howard' homepage

Join us in Aspen for the 'Aspen Antiques & Fine Arts Fair'

July 9-12, 2009
11am-7pm Thursday-Saturday
11am-5pm Sunday

Aspen Ice Garden
233 West Hyman
Aspen, Colorado

Fern Nature Prints

I always love seeing fern prints in a home, there is something so fresh and striking about them that lends them to both a more contemporary and traditional decor. We have a lovely set of Thomas Moore ferns here in the gallery ( see an example of two below) that would be a wonderful addition to any botanical collection.



Thomas Moore
Pressed nature-prints from Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland
27” x 20” framed. London, 1855.

In these magnificent pressed nature-prints, Thomas Moore has created the finest examples of nature-printing available. The 51 plates were produced by Henry Bradbury for Moore‘s book The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, published in London, 1855. Nature printing is a straightforward technique discovered in the fifteenth century, which involves using the plant specimen itself in the creation of an image. At its simplest, a plant is covered with ink and then pressed flat against a piece of paper, leaving an image or impression on the paper. This rather crude method was advanced and perfected during the nineteenth century by the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna. At its most refined, the technique involves passing the plant, under pressure, between two metal plates, one made of soft lead and the other of hard steel. This technique can be achieved by most artists, although the expense of the technique meant that it has never been widely adopted, and examples such as these ferns by Moore are rare.

Thomas Moore (1821-87) was a gardener and writer on horticulture, who became curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1848 and lived there until his death; he wrote and published extensively on ferns. The garden, renamed the Chelsea Physic Garden in 1875, increased the number of fern species cultivated there by fifty percent under his tenure. The Thomas Moore Fernery was built on the site of his original garden in 1907, and today contains a display of varieties of ferns described and cultivated by Moore and popular during the Victorian era. His patron and friend was the great botanist and horticulturalist John Lindley (1799-1865), who became the first Professor of Botany at the University of London, and was also the editor on Moore’s book. The third party involved in the publishing of The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland was Henry Bradbury, who was a specialist and became acquainted with the nature-printing process at the Imperial Printing Office in Vienna. This new technique of nature printing was originally invented by Aloes Auer and Andreas Warring in 1852 and was thus improved by Bradbury and he patented his own version in London.

So well-received was Moore’s book that it heralded a craze for ferns during the nineteenth century, perhaps because of the exquisite delicacy of the images. Victorian’s, particularly the British, were fascinated by ferns, planting them in gardens and utilizing the fern form as a popular decorative arts motif. Collections of fern prints such as this one were extremely popular with both scientists and others who were simply entranced with the graceful and decorative forms. The fern craze, dubbed “pteridomania” by Charles Kingsley in 1855, raged between 1850 and 1890. It was fed, in part, by the excitement of discovery – even though ferns were plentiful throughout the damp woodlands of Britain, they had an exotic aura, having been little studied before 1840, and needing careful tending in order to be cultivated in urban settings. Fern motifs decorated nearly every type of utilitarian object from including china, furniture, wrought iron, textiles and even gravestones. Their cultivation, especially indoors in Wardian Cases and conservatories, led to a proliferation of books on ferns and their culture. We invite you to stop in and see these rare and exquisite prints!

Radical Cartography

The first map featured here I originally discovered on the 'radical cartography' website and was immediately drawn to the colors and abstract nature. A set of these would be so perfect in a more contemporary home.

THE ALLUVIAL VALLEY OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI RIVER
Harold Fisk, 1944
Part of an otherwise technocratic report for the Army Corps of Engineers, Fisk’s maps of the historical traces of the Mississippi River are a wonderful surprise—Fifteen maps, stretching from southern Illinois to southern Louisiana.

The Mississippi River map then reminded me of the wonderful selection of maps of the 'Aspen Mining District' we have here in Denver, that are also very abstract in nature and would make a powerful statement grouped as a set.

Josiah Edward Spurr
A selection of maps from the atlas to “The Geology of the Aspen District, Colorado”
United States Geological Survey: Washington, DC, 1898
Chromolithographs: each app.

These maps, issued by the US Geological Survey in 1898, are fascinating documents of Aspen’s first period of prosperity during the mining boom of the 1890s. The first prospectors crossed over the mountains from Leadville in the spring of 1877 and settled in the camp they called Ute City after the Ute Indians, the first residents of the area, who had aptly named it ‘Shining Mountains.’ By 1879, a number of hopeful prospectors had settled in the camp, and in the summer of 1880, the town, which had grown to 300 residents, was renamed Aspen. By 1890, thousands of fortune seekers had arrived in Aspen to stake their claims or work in the mines. During those boom days Aspen boasted 12,000 residents, 6 newspapers, 4 schools, 3 banks, 10 churches, a modern hospital, and an opera house. Many mining camps were temporary settlements (even the ghost town of Ashcroft, 11 miles from Aspen, had a population of 15,000), but Aspen residents strived for permanence. All of Aspen’s significant buildings and Victorian residences, many of which still stand, were built over a short ten year period. Aspen’s mining fortunes fell in 1893 when the silver was de-monetized. Many of the larger mines shut down and, as mining declined, the local economy became more and more dependent on ranching and farming. By the 1930's Aspen's population had shrunk to 700 people, and it would not revive plans were laid to make it into the ski resort and cultural center it is today. These geological maps stand as rare and engaging testaments to the town’s emergence and its early period of thriving, a time when the infrastructure -- which is still recognizable today in Aspen’s plan -- was first being developed, and when the natural beauty of the place was already competing with that which came out of the mines.

Please contact us for prices and additional images.

Antique Prints in a Mountain Home

It is always very exciting to see the inventory of Arader Galleries, Denver in our clients' homes, and of course it is so thoughtful for them to share with us. Below are pictures of a cabin home in Montana, designed by DM Leuschen Designs.

Contact Info:
Diane M Leuschen
Bozeman, Montana
Studio 406.586.9684
dleuschen@aol.com

Here is Audubon's 'Snowy Owl' over the fireplace

Above features a set of misc. Western views from the 18th century

Please feel free to contact us for similar works.

Sale

Arader Gallery, Denver is having a Sale! Limited Time Only! Please contact us for more Info.!

How to Decorate with Maps

Typically when one thinks of decorating with maps, a study or office comes to mind....which is certainly a most appropriate room for maps where one can demonstrate their love of history and travel, and in which this room above so beautifully demonstrates. However, maps can be featured in any part of the home....

Here are some examples of maps for sale at the Arader Gallery, Denver location. Please contact us for prices and more information.

Henri Abraham Chatelain, “Carte Tres Curieuse de la Mer du Sud...”From Atlas Historique, Paris: 1719. Hand-colored copperplate engraving, 33” x 55 1/2”; 39” x 63”

Gerard and Rumold Mercator, Orbis Terrae Compendiosa Descriptio... Engraving with original hand color: 111/2” x 203/4” Duisburg, 1587 (1595)

Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) America sive novi Orbis, nova descriptio… Hand-Colored copperplate engraving

Charles Varle, Map of the United States Partly from the New Surveys Dedicated to the citizens thereof, by their humble servant Chas. Varle. Engineer and Geographer 1817. Published Baltimore 1817, Engraving. This is also framed.