Cattleya Schroederoe alba Orchids lithograph after a watercolour. c1890.

by Moon, H.G.

Large orchid chromolithograph by Joseph Mansell after HG Moon.

Fine original lithograph after a watercolour by landscape painter and botanical artist Henry George Moon (1857-1905), who as illustrator for the magazine The Garden, and skillfully represented flowers in a natural manner for Reichenbachia: Orchids Illustrated and Described published in London between 1888 and 1894 by Hanover-born nurseryman Henry Frederick Conrad Sander (1847-1920).

A nursery-worker from the age of 20, Sander set up his own nursery after Prague explorer and plant collector Benedict Roezl began sending him orchids and tropical plants to sell on consignment. With an aim of illustrating life-size orchids of every class, Sander employed collectors to travel the world, employed artists and lithographers, and named his grand monograph Reichenbachia after German botanist Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach (1824-1889), who devoted his life to studying orchids.

Image size is 330 x 470 cm (13 x 18.5 inches). The total page size is 395 x 530 mm (15.5 x 20.75 inches)