The Old Print Shop

Sharpless' Seedling. [Strawberry]

  • ARTIST: Dellon Marcus Dewey

  • MEDIUM: Chromolithograph,

    DATE: c.1880.

  • EDITION SIZE: Paper size 8 3/4 x 5 5/8" (22.2 x 14.3 cm).

  • DESCRIPTION: From Dewey's Pocket Series - Colored from Nature. Out of Rochester, New York, this color plate was made and bound with other fruit & flower plates and used by nursery salesman to visually represent the 'product' they were selling. "In the early period the plates were usually produced by stencil and hand coloring,.... Chromolithography gradually replaced the hand-finished plates and became the primary medium by the mid-1880's." - Reese. Text under title: "The largest and finest Strawberry cultivated. A Seedling raised by J. K. Sharpless, Catawissa, Pa. A specimen exhibited at the Nurserymen's Convention held in Rochester, N. Y., June 20th, 1878. weighed one and one-half ounces, and measured seven inches in circumference. Plant vigorous and luxuriant, hardy and prolific. Flesh firm; sweet, with a delicate aroma. First in quality."

  • ADDITIONAL INFO:

  • CONDITION: Good condition with original color.

  • REFERENCE: Reese "Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books," also; Last "The Color Explosion, Ninteenth-century American Lithography." p.272