Anna Atkins – Ptilota plumosa, 1853 | Framed Giclée Print

Ptilota plumosa is a red alga that grows in fine, opposite branches, like a feather cut from wire. Under the sun, on iron-salted paper, it left this: a white plume on Prussian blue, every side branch separated, nothing drawn.

Anna Atkins made her images without a camera. She laid the dried plant on coated paper, exposed it to daylight and rinsed it in water. Between 1843 and 1853 she did this several thousand times and produced Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions — the first book in history illustrated with photographs. Perhaps twenty-five copies were ever assembled.

What this is. A giclée reproduction of one of Atkins's cyanotypes, printed with pigment inks. It is not a cyanotype and is not sold as one — a real cyanotype is a unique object made in sunlight, and Atkins's are in museums.

Scale
Original: 25.3 × 20 cm / 10.0 × 7.9 in — Metropolitan Museum of Art
30 × 40 cm / 11.8 × 15.7 in — Original size, 1:1

At original size the sheet carries the cyanotype exactly as Atkins made it.

The plate is reproduced whole, including Atkins's handwritten species name. Only the museum's mount around the sheet is trimmed away.

Provenance
Anna Atkins (1799–1871), Ptilota plumosa, from Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1843–1853; cyanotype, image 25.3 × 20 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2005, Acc. No. 2005.100.557 (31).
The work is in the public domain worldwide; the Museum publishes its digitisation under Open Access (CC0).

The frame
Giclée on 200 gsm FSC-certified fine art paper, twelve pigment inks, white border. Slim black aluminium frame, glazed with clear plexiglass instead of glass, so it travels safely. Print and frame ship together in one package and are assembled on arrival. Part of the Hotel Collection — volume pricing from ten pieces.