![Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. I) 2. [Seven Designs For Jewelry, Including Necklace With Pearls And Diamonds With Central Flower Shape.] (1872 - 1873) - Die Perle; Musterblätter Für Juweliere U. Goldarbeiter](/upload/nat/die-perle-musterblatter-fur-juweliere-u-goldarbeiter/035-original.webp)
Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. I) 2. [Seven Designs For Jewelry, Including Necklace With Pearls And Diamonds With Central Flower Shape.] (1872 - 1873)
Ten ways of seeing
- upright 1.35 : 1
First Look
论画以形似，见与儿童邻。
—— 宋·苏轼《书鄢陵王主簿所画折枝》
To judge painting by likeness alone is the view of a child.
The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles in the upper half. Let the plant stand before you look for detail. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.
Form and Colour
Flowering trees and shrubs put out branches first; blossoms open before or with the leaves, usually five thin, translucent petals around a cluster of fine stamens.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Old plates set the plant slightly off centre, with unequal margins — that small imbalance is what keeps it alive.
Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.
Poetic Resonance
桃之夭夭，灼灼其华。
—— 《诗经·周南·桃夭》
The peach tree, young and graceful, its blossoms blazing bright.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
Plum is solitude, peach is marriage, apricot is spring itself, crabapple is a fragile fate; the hibiscus, opening at dawn and falling at dusk, is impermanence. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
Mid spring: plum first, then peach and apricot, cherry last — the season keeps its order. cherry and crabapple went east to Japan and west to Europe. The year 1872 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. See this kind of plate in the flowering season if you can: once you have met the living flower, you stop reading only colour.
The Book and the Hand
“Die Perle; Musterblätter Für Juweliere U. Goldarbeiter” carries only Martin Gerlach's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1872 gave a whole day to a single flower.
![Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. I) 3. [Seventeen Designs For Jewelry, Including Brooch With Question Mark.] (1872 - 1873)](/upload/nat/die-perle-musterblatter-fur-juweliere-u-goldarbeiter/036-thumb.webp)
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