Does anyone know if this is valuable?

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Patricia Kotnour

Patricia Kotnour

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A woman brought this picture to me and asked me to reframe it. The frame has a cardboard backing holding the picture in place and probably is why the background of the picture appears to be tan. The picture itself appears to be very old, but my guess is that it was framed mid 20th century. At the bottom of the root, which looks like a turnup, it says: Pub d as the Act directs May 1 1789 by W Curtis Botamic Garden Iambeth Marsh

Up in the right corner there is a small 82 pened in I believe

I'm not sure if I should take it out of the frame. That cardboard is really doing damage but I don't want to remove it if it will cause a reduction in value to the picture. Does anyone know if this picture is valuable? My next step will be to take it to an antique dealer to see what they say.

Any information would be greatly appreciated.
 

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hard to say but looks like a book engraving .. colors are rich so must be old ;) lead based inks .... either way I wouldn't leave the cardboard in there ..
 
It looks like the print might have value, but not the frame. So get the print out of there, where we can bet the housing is doing damage.

Rarely -if ever- does the way something is put into a frame have any value.
 
freakquency said:
hard to say but looks like a book engraving .. colors are rich so must be old ;) lead based inks .... either way I wouldn't leave the cardboard in there ..
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That was my first thought as well. It does look to be more than a magazine page, but the inked in 82 at the top of the page does indicate that it could be a page number from a very old magazine. The colors are very vibrant for it's age. I suspsect the paper was once light cream or off white.

You are right freakquency, the cardboard has got to go. It could be interesting. The framer that framed this, from what I can find out has been out of business since the mid 50's. I don't think conservation was even a word used by framers back then. Thanks everyone for your input. I'll keep you posted about what I find.
 
Good find, Robo.
:thumbsup: Rick

Pat- that could look great reframed in a nice burl and gold with french lines and panels on the mat.
 
freakquency said:
hard to say but looks like a book engraving .. colors are rich so must be old ;) lead based inks .... either way I wouldn't leave the cardboard in there ..
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I just took it out of the frame. The paper appears to be some kind of parchment. When I hold it up to the light there are find lines horizontally very close together and vertically there are more defined lines that are about an inch apart and run from top to bottom. It's like a watermarked parchment. Does this give you any idea what it might be? From the back the turnip is bright white as if it was some kind of ink behind the balb to make it stand out. As you can see it is very acid burned from the cardboard.
 

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Rick Granick said:
Good find, Robo.
:thumbsup: Rick

Pat- that could look great reframed in a nice burl and gold with french lines and panels on the mat.
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Yes, Robo and thanks for the info.

That's a great idea Rick, but I will have to find out what the owner wants first. Does anyone have any idea of what this might be worth, or even if it has any value? That may make a difference in how much she wants to spend to reframe it.
 
Parchment is sheep or goat skin, what you're describing sounds like ingres (pron "on-gray") paper.

There doesn't seem to be a plate mark so it's probably ripped out of a magazine, which even if you could find complete and in good condition, wouldn't be worth much or very collectable.

It's far more profitable to rip 'em up in to individual pieces of 'art' - which is still big business today. Buy an old magazine/journal/atlas for a few bucks, rip the best images out, toss the rest, color/re-color as required, mat them and put a price tag on each that is 20 times more than you paid for the whole mag/journal/atlas - plus you can can give a 'circa' date on the price tag, because you know exactly how old it is, the date was on the cover you tossed!
 
Take a bath

They can be cleaned up nicely
 
RoboFramer said:
Parchment is sheep or goat skin, what you're describing sounds like ingres (pron "on-gray") paper.

There doesn't seem to be a plate mark so it's probably ripped out of a magazine, which even if you could find complete and in good condition, wouldn't be worth much or very collectable.
This really doesn't look like any magazine I've ever seen. It's more the size of a book. If it was from a magazine it had to be a very old one that only printed on one side of the pages. Judging from what my customer told me about it, I'm pretty sure this picture is at least 90-100 years old if not older. She is my age and her mother had it when she was a child and handed it down to her.
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Over the years I've seen more of these than I can count. The damage you are seeing looks exactly like what we see all the time. You have two options:

1. Give the customer the name of a good local conservator. Results can be amazing.
2. If the customer does not want to spend that kind of money on them, about $200. or so in this area, carefully preservation frame them with no guarantee that you have stopped the damage in its tracks.

We take all art out of old frames while the customer is in the shop so that we can have this discussion. Less than half take the conservation step. Most just have us frame them so that they are hopefully preserved for their lifetime. The customers who use local conservators tend to order more beautiful custom framing for them when they return.

Here is a two sided vellum example that had conservation work done on it before we framed them with a very simple tretment:
http://www.framersworkshop.com/Examples/DoubleSidedFrame.html

This one was sent to Philadelphia for conservation with results that delighted the customer. It was riddled with foxing beforehand.
http://www.framersworkshop.com/Examples/Picasso4web.html
 
Pat, have you compared what you have to the stuff in my second link?

Here's an example from it. It looks like what you have with the text underneath and a number top right. Same name too 'Curtis' - not necc the artist but from his magazine - 'magazines' would have been different sizes all that time ago, how does the size compare?
 
RoboFramer said:
Pat, have you compared what you have to the stuff in my second link?

Here's an example from it. It looks like what you have with the text underneath and a number top right. Same name too 'Curtis' - not necc the artist but from his magazine - 'magazines' would have been different sizes all that time ago, how does the size compare?
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The size is 9 x 5 3/8 so you are probably right, Robo, it came from one of the books. Kristie, I will suggest the a paper conservator. My customers Mom died many years ago and this picture has much sentimental value to her. She will probably go for it. If not, at least it is out of the cardboard and will have a better chance of surviving in the furture.

This might sound like a dumb question, but this is not my area of expertise and I would like to know; Robo, does the publishing date of May 1, 1789 mean that this page 82 is 222 years old? Or could it be a publication of a later time on a reprint? Just curious. I love learning new things and it's fun to be the one asking the questions instead of having to give answers. Thank you everyone for all your help.
 
From your description it sounds like it might be a frontispiece to a book or magazine.

A frontispiece was a common practice in books and magazines back, back, back in the day. Some famous artists such as Rockwell and Parrish did a lot of frontispiece commissions.

The frontispiece in a book separated the carp at the beginning (Title page, copyrights, TOC, etc.) from the book content. The layout of magazines back then commonly had a section of advertising at the front and rear with content (with no advertising) in the middle. The frontispiece in a magazine would be the separator between the advertising in front and the content.

I have a number of Parrish frontispieces from Century Magazine that he did in the 1900-1910 time frame that I have framed and which decorate my stairs. Here are some of mine.

stairs2.jpg


stairs.jpg


stairs1.jpg


stairs3.jpg
 
This looks to be a Hand colored Plate from The Botanical Magazine by W. Curtis "The first and most important botanical magazine made up of 'figures' of plants and their descriptions. Provides a storehouse of exotics paralleling the indigenous plants similarly treated in Smith and Sowerby's English Botany." and if it is an original book plate it does have some value. But not a whole lot I just referenced a lot of 84 plates that went for 650 pounds that would be around $10 a piece. Sometime if the color is very nice and in good condition (which this does not appear to be the case) you would be lucky to get 40-100 dollars a print. If you were able to aquire the entire 126 volume bound set that would fetch around 25,000 to 30,000 dollars, but thats for over 10,000 plates!

Happy Thanksgiving!
 
Sorry to jump in so late, but the most recent post pointed out some of what I know. These plates were originally published as a collection of images in books, sometimes by subscription. The number is probably not a page number (or just a page number), but also a key to the listing of plates. While some of these botanical volumes were reprinted over the years, they were produced in quantities that allow some to be sold as decorative items (I have a set of four in one of my bedrooms, French matted, etc.), and could be selected for color scheme, theme, etc. Just as with anything, there are some that are rarer, more collectible. So, it could be entirely old and authentic, but at the same time, not extremely valuable.

So, barring any additional information coming to light, I would just treat this as you would any good item you want to preserve - frame with good conservation practices.

Joseph
 
I have a stack of these - all original 1780's/1790's. The originals will have plate impressions and are hand-colored. In the world of collectible antique botanicals they rank fairly low, but are they are beautiful and affordable. I like in particular that they are almost always dated in the plate - this is not so with many (most) antique prints. Don't confuse these small (octavo) size prints with the larger (folio) size Curtis prints which are somewhat more desirable.

Here is a link to a dealer with a very nice selection of original Curtis prints for comparison:

http://www.panteek.com/curtis/index.htm
 
Pat Kotnour said:
The size is 9 x 5 3/8 so you are probably right, Robo, it came from one of the books. Kristie, I will suggest the a paper conservator. My customers Mom died many years ago and this picture has much sentimental value to her. She will probably go for it. If not, at least it is out of the cardboard and will have a better chance of surviving in the furture.

This might sound like a dumb question, but this is not my area of expertise and I would like to know; does the publishing date of May 1, 1789 mean that this page 82 is 222 years old? Or could it be a publication of a later time on a reprint? Just curious. I love learning new things and it's fun to be the one asking the questions instead of having to give answers. Thank you everyone for all your help.
Click to expand...

Is this picture 222 years old?
 
From my first link .....


"This work, although highly praised, was not remunerative and he, therefore, in 1787, founded the Botanical Magazine or Flower Garden Displayed. The principal artists were William Kilburn, James Sowerby, Sydenham Edwards and Walter Fitch. This periodical is still being published, although it was renamed Kew Magazine in 1984"

........ so unless you have a complete magazine, you'll never really know if what you have is from the 18th century or the 21st unless you take it to someone who would know.




 
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