The Florilegium
Print detail — every line holds at full size

The Orchid

The Swan Orchid

Cycnoches egertonianum

The column arches like a swan’s neck — and the plant changes sex with the light.

Book
The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala
Artist
after Augusta Withers and Sarah Drake, for James Bateman
Date
1837–1843
Held by
Wikimedia Commons
Cycnoches egertonianum

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore, down to the stipple.

Size

$29.00

The story

The swan orchid takes its name from the long arched column that curves over the lip like a bird's neck. Its stranger property is that the same plant produces male or female flowers depending on how much light it has had — so wildly different in appearance that botanists described them for years as separate species. Bateman's contributors drew what arrived, faithfully, and left the confusion in the record. The plant was two species until somebody moved it into the sun.

See it on your wall

The garden, brought indoors

The Swan Orchid printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

The Swan Orchid framed on the wall
The Swan Orchid framed on the wall
The Swan Orchid framed on the wall
The Swan Orchid framed on the wall

About this reproduction

  • A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate held by Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright (1837–1843).
  • Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years (inscribed pieces and atelier bouquets are set by hand and printed to order).
  • Colour-managed to the source scan: the hand-colour is the colourist’s, not ours. We correct nothing and invent nothing.
  • Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
  • If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the stipple that makes a petal look soft, the wash of the hand-colourist, the veins of the leaf — on stock made to outlive its owner. A poster reproduces the picture. This reproduces the plate.

From the same hand

Stanhopea — The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, after Augusta Withers and Sarah Drake, for James Bateman, 1837–1843

1837–1843

Stanhopea

An orchid that flowers downward, through the bottom of its own basket.

Stanhopea martiana
The Goblin Orchid — The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, after Augusta Withers and Sarah Drake, for James Bateman, 1837–1843

1837–1843

The Goblin Orchid

A flower twisted off its own axis — and it fires pollen at whatever touches it.

Mormodes maculata
The Clown Orchid — The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, after Augusta Withers and Sarah Drake, for James Bateman, 1837–1843

1837–1843

The Clown Orchid

A figure in the middle of the flower with its arms up — everyone sees it.

Rossioglossum insleayi