The Large Sunflower

Helianthus annuus

Flos Solis Maior, from the first great garden book ever printed.

Book: Flos Solis Maior, pl. 1 of part 5, from Hortus Eystettensis
Artist: Basilius Besler
Date: 1613 (1713 edition)
Held by: Wikimedia Commons

Helianthus annuus

Format

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

$29.00

The story

In 1613 Basilius Besler published the entire garden of the Prince-Bishop of Eichstätt as a colossal folio — the *Hortus Eystettensis*, the first great flower book, arranged by the seasons. Its plates, dense with blooms at life-size, set the standard every florilegium after would chase. The Renaissance garden, preserved forever on paper. The garden itself was destroyed in war within thirty years; only the book survives.

See it on your wall

The garden, brought indoors

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

About this reproduction

A faithful reproduction of a public-domain plate held by Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright (1613 (1713 edition)).
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