The record behind the sheet in your tube: the file we worked from, what we measured, what we chose and why, what we are allowed to sell, and the framing dimensions for this sheet.
The sheet you have
- Work
- Anna Atkins (1799–1871), Zygnema curvatum, from Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1843–1853
- Object
- Cyanotype — a photogram, the alga laid on paper coated with iron salts and exposed to sunlight. No camera, no negative, no drawn line. Leaf approximately 27 × 21 cm
- Held by
- The New York Public Library, Spencer Collection — the copy Atkins presented to Sir John Herschel
- Shelf locator
- Spencer Coll. Eng. 1843 93-440
- File
- The library's own IIIF endpoint, 5656 × 7400 px
- Crop
- [104, 151, 5467, 7207] → 5364 × 7056 px, ratio 1.3155
- Printed at
- 30 × 40 cm sheet: leaf 20.52 × 27.00 cm, original size, 1:1 — 664 dpi available
50 × 70 cm sheet: leaf 42.00 × 55.25 cm, 2.05× — 324 dpi available
Which copy, and why this one
Photographs of British Algae is the first book illustrated with photographs, made by one woman over ten years; only about seventeen copies survive. Ours is the Herschel copy. We printed the Metropolitan Museum's impression until 31 August 2026 and replaced it — the Met file gave 165 dpi at the enlarged size, the thinnest figure anywhere in this line, against 324 dpi from the library's.
What the edges show
Printed whole, from a bound album. Measured on the 1:1 print, the corner losses are 1.6 mm at the upper left, 3.9 upper right, 2.8 lower left and 2.2 lower right. Nothing is trimmed inward and nothing is retouched: the darker border zones are the sheet's own shadow and its uneven hand coating, not album material. The whole blue page is the work.
What we are allowed to sell
The work. Made between 1843 and 1853; Atkins died in 1871. Public domain worldwide.
The photograph. The New York Public Library publishes this digitisation as public domain in the United States and asks for credit rather than requiring it — the credit is on the product page.
What we do not claim. A giclée reproduction printed with pigment inks. Not a cyanotype.
Framing this sheet
- 30 × 40 cm sheet
- A 30 × 40 cm frame, no mat. Margins 4.74 cm each side, 6.05 above, 6.95 below.
- 50 × 70 cm sheet
- A 50 × 70 cm frame. Nearest standard 20 × 28 in. Margins 4.00 cm each side, 6.86 above, 7.89 below.
- If you mat it
- Cut the window three millimetres inside the printed image on every side. Do not trim the sheet.
Please measure before you buy or cut. These figures describe the file we print from. Sheets are cut by machine to about a millimetre and frames vary between makers. We replace a print that arrives damaged or wrong; we cannot replace a frame or mat that turns out not to fit.
All records: museartis.com/pages/sheet-records · Questions: info@museartis.com