Antique Botanical Illustration No. 151
Buy this print on Etsy →A jewel of nineteenth-century botanical illustration, this is a hand-coloured chromolithograph of Quassia amara - the tropical shrub known as bitterwood or amargo - taken from the celebrated German reference 'Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen' (Köhler's Medicinal Plants), published in the 1880s. Against a warm cream ground, a single elegant branch unfurls its glossy dark-green leaves and a spray of vivid scarlet, tube-shaped flowers, while a row of precise botanical studies along the foot dissects the blossom, stamens, seeds and fruit with the loving exactness that made these plates the gold standard of scientific art.
The plant itself has a wonderful story. Quassia amara, a member of the Simaroubaceae family (named at top right on the plate), is famous for being one of the most intensely bitter substances in all of nature - its active compound, quassin, is measurably more bitter than quinine. For centuries its wood and bark were prized across the apothecary world as a tonic to stimulate the appetite and settle the stomach, as a natural insecticide, and as a bittering agent in tonics, liqueurs and aperitifs. That mix of beauty and usefulness is exactly what these old medicinal atlases set out to capture.
'Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen' was one of the great botanical undertakings of its age - a multi-volume catalogue of the world's healing plants illustrated by skilled artists including Walther Müller, whose chromolithographs combined the accuracy a pharmacist or physician needed with a natural grace that still stops people in their tracks today. Each plate was drawn to show the whole living plant alongside the tiny anatomical details, a format that reads beautifully as modern wall art.
And as wall art it is a quiet showstopper. The glowing red flowers and deep greens against aged paper bring instant warmth and a touch of natural-history romance to a space. It is a natural for a kitchen, dining room or pantry, a bathroom or a plant-filled room, and it slots effortlessly into cottagecore, farmhouse, botanical, apothecary or eclectic interiors. Botanical and plant lovers adore these prints, they look wonderful grouped in a gallery wall of antique plates, and they make a thoughtful gift for herbalists, gardeners, foragers, bartenders or anyone drawn to vintage science and nature illustration.
Because the original was published in the 1880s, it now sits firmly in the public domain, which is why we can reproduce it at full museum quality.
Each print is produced on premium 189 gsm museum-grade archival matte paper, faithfully capturing the vivid red of the flowers, the depth of the foliage and the soft warmth of the antique paper - ready to frame and enjoy for years to come.
