The Florilegium
Print detail — every line holds at full size

The Orchid

The Clown Orchid

Rossioglossum insleayi

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

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

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

In the centre of this flower is a small figure with its arms raised, and once seen it cannot be unseen — which is why the group has been called the clown orchid for a century and a half. The apparent figure is the column and the base of the lip, and it has no function whatsoever except to catch a bee's attention, which is arguably the same reason it catches ours. Two species, separated by a hundred million years, agreeing about what is worth looking at.

See it on your wall

The garden, brought indoors

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

The Clown Orchid framed on the wall
The Clown Orchid framed on the wall
The Clown Orchid framed on the wall
The Clown 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 Swan Orchid — The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, after Augusta Withers and Sarah Drake, for James Bateman, 1837–1843

1837–1843

The Swan Orchid

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

Cycnoches egertonianum
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