MUSÆ fructu breviore spadix floriger in magnitudine naturali. [Banana with Shorter Fruit and a Flowering Spadix, in Natural Size] a.a. pedunculus folü, b. spadix. c.c. involucrum spathas unacum froribus coercens difruptum, d.d.d. spathae revolutae a facie interiori, e.e. spathae flores involventes a facie exteriori, f.f.f. florum verticilli. [a.a. the stalk with leaves] [b. the spadix (flower spike)] [c.c. one long, with a spathe (bract) enclosing one fruit and one flower] [d. the external view] [e.f.f. the natural flower.]

Description

original hand-colour copper engraving. EXTREMELY RARE.

Glorious large print from the botanist cum physician Christoph Jakob Trew’s (1695-1769) work Plantae Selectae, Tab. XXII, published by August Vindel in Nuremberg/Germany in one volume of 100 images, with 10 parts of 10 engravings each. Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770) was the brilliant artist for this work and was considered one of the most influential artists in the world of botanical illustration; he also produced the original drawings for Weinmann’s famous Phytanthoza Iconographia. Ehret’s plates are both remarkable and scientifically accurate, unrivalled to “achieve realism, majesty, ineffable colour, all in one breathtaking look.” (Hunt). The original hand-colouring was completed by Johann Jakob Haid ((1704-1767), German engraver, artist, and publisher.
A “flowering spadix”: The elongated spike-like inflorescence, or flower cluster, of the banana plant.
“Shorter fruit”: Indicating a variety of Musa species that produces smaller, more compact fruit.
“In natural size”: the drawing accurately reflects the actual dimensions of the influorescence and its fruit.
The Process of creating this print was the same as for all prints:
The plates were first drawn by botanical artists like Ehret. 
These drawings were then engraved onto copper plates by artists such as Haid. 
Finally, an artist (Haid) completed the hand-colouring of such engraved plate. 
Plantae Selectae is one of the greatest of all 18th Century botanical books, prompting the famous Linnaeus to write to Trew, that “The miracles of our century in the natural sciences are your work of Ehret’s plants… nothing to equal them was seen in the past or will be in the future.”[from Latin]
Trew was to remain a friend and patron of Ehret’s throughout his life, and by 1742, the germ of what was to become the present publication was already under discussion when Trew wrote “Every year I receive some beautifully painted exotic plants [by Ehret] and have already more than 100 of them….”
Ehret moved to London in the late 1730s, where he painted the recently introduced exotics at the Chelsea Physic Garden and established himself as a teacher of flower-painting and botany.