{"product_id":"elizabeth_blackwell__french_mercury_a_curious_herbal_page_162","title":"French Mercury, A Curious Herbal, Plate 162 – Elizabeth Blackwell, 1737","description":"\u003ch2\u003eFrench Mercury, A Curious Herbal, Plate 162 by Elizabeth Blackwell, 1737\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003ch3\u003eFramed Canvas Art\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis hand-colored \u003cem\u003ecopperplate engraving\u003c\/em\u003e from Elizabeth Blackwell's landmark botanical compendium presents \u003cstrong\u003eMercurialis annua\u003c\/strong\u003e, the plant known as French Mercury, rendered with the precise observational discipline that defined eighteenth-century botanical illustration. The composition moves vertically from a pale, bare rootstock at the base — its fibrous tendrils spreading laterally across the lower register — up through a branching stem dressed in serrated, deeply veined leaves rendered in layered olive, forest, and sage greens. \u003cstrong\u003eSmall catkin-like flower clusters\u003c\/strong\u003e emerge from the leaf axils at multiple nodes, depicted with botanical fidelity rather than decorative license. A single insect, likely a fly, is recorded in the upper left field, a reminder that Blackwell approached her subjects as a naturalist would. The ivory aged ground of the page holds the composition in a spare, scientific calm; light falls evenly across the foliage without dramatic shadow, prioritizing legible form over romantic atmosphere.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBlackwell produced \u003cem\u003eA Curious Herbal\u003c\/em\u003e between 1737 and 1739 under circumstances that were themselves remarkable: she undertook the project specifically to raise funds to free her husband Alexander Blackwell from a debtors' prison in London. Working from the Chelsea Physic Garden, she drew, engraved, and hand-colored all five hundred plates herself — a feat of sustained labor that had no real precedent among women publishers of the era. Plate 162, depicting \u003cem\u003eMercurialis annua\u003c\/em\u003e, was among the medicinal plants included for its established role in the \u003cem\u003emateria medica\u003c\/em\u003e of the period; the plant was prescribed as a purgative and emmenagogue. The herbal was endorsed by the College of Physicians and dedicated to the Society of Apothecaries, lending it institutional authority that helped it sell across Britain and Europe. Blackwell's plates occupy a transitional place in the history of botanical art, sitting between the decorative Baroque herbals of the previous century and the rigorously systematic \u003cem\u003elinnaean\u003c\/em\u003e illustration that would follow; they are scientific documents that nonetheless carry the warmth of direct observation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur archival \u003cem\u003egiclee\u003c\/em\u003e process on museum-grade cotton canvas recovers the full tonal range of this plate: the nuanced gradations from the pale yellow-ivory of the aged page ground through the mid-toned sage of younger leaves to the deep forest green of the mature foliage at the plant's midsection. The delicate copperplate line work — the fine crosshatching that defines leaf venation and the crisp outlines of each serrated margin — is preserved at a resolution that mass-produced lithographic reprints consistently flatten into muddy approximations. Our source material is drawn from high-resolution museum scans, digitally restored to recover the original hand-applied color accuracy that has shifted in surviving physical copies over nearly three centuries. The ornate composite frame, finished in warm antique gold, complements the botanical palette of greens and the aged ivory field without competing with the spare scientific elegance of Blackwell's line.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CanvasClassics","offers":[{"title":"Small (25 x 19) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073649713387,"sku":"1980211","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small (25 x 19) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073649746155,"sku":"1980212","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Small (25 x 19) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073649778923,"sku":"1980213","price":195.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium (31 x 22) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073649811691,"sku":"1980221","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium (31 x 22) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073649844459,"sku":"1980222","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Medium (31 x 22) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073649877227,"sku":"1980223","price":295.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large (43 x 30) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073649909995,"sku":"1980231","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large (43 x 30) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073649942763,"sku":"1980232","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Large (43 x 30) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073649975531,"sku":"1980233","price":495.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate (55 x 37) \/ Gold","offer_id":49073650008299,"sku":"1980241","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate (55 x 37) \/ Silver","offer_id":49073650041067,"sku":"1980242","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Estate (55 x 37) \/ Dark Bronze","offer_id":49073650073835,"sku":"1980243","price":995.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0762\/8606\/6923\/files\/elizabeth_blackwell__french_mercury_a_curious_herbal_page_162__small__gold.jpg?v=1784501947","url":"https:\/\/canvasclassics.shop\/products\/elizabeth_blackwell__french_mercury_a_curious_herbal_page_162","provider":"Canvas Classics","version":"1.0","type":"link"}