CRANWELL Thomas New Zealand Ferns [titre sur le plat].

Beautiful album of New Zealand ferns, prepared and mounted by Thomas Cranwell (1824-1908), one of the best-known makers of pressed fern album makers, the emblematic plant of New Zealand in the 19th century.

It contains 30 different species of ferns with printed legends of their Latin names. The publisher's binding with engraved wooden boards was probably made by the Viennese cabinetmaker Anton Seuffert, a collaborator of Cranwell, who had emigrated to New Zealand in 1859. The Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington holds three  different examples of fern albums composed by Cranwell between 1870 and 1878, featuring kauri (an indigenous conifer species) wood plates, one of which is identical to ours.

The silver fern became the symbol of New Zealand from the beginning of British colonization in the 1840s. Thomas Cranwell, one of the three main specialist preparers, took advantage of the popularity of the plant to offer individual plates and souvenir albums of pressed ferns to botanists and tourists around the world. A singing teacher by profession, he had arrived in New Zealand from Lincolnshire in 1862 and settled in Parnell. In order to distinguish his products from other albums on the market, he joined forces with the Austrian cabinetmaker Anton Seuffert, who made elaborate bindings for him from native woods. Collecting and pressing local fern specimens had become popular pastime in New Zealand, usually bound in native timbers such kauri or rimu.

These albums were much appreciated and sought after as souvenirs. The inner-cover bears the author's original label, printed on orange paper : "Prepared and mounted / by / T. Cranwell, / Parnell, / Auckland, N.Z."

Fine album, boards slightly split but intact.