Star of Bethlehem

Ornithogalum

Two ornithogalums and a hoverfly, engraved at eye level with the soil.

Book: Ornithogalum minus & maius, pl. 35, from Hortus Floridus
Artist: Crispijn van de Passe
Date: 1614
Held by: Wikimedia Commons

Ornithogalum

Arrangement

Format

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

$29.00

The story

From the *Hortus Floridus*, one of the loveliest of the early flower books — and one of the strangest, because van de Passe engraved his plants from ground level, so the viewer kneels in the bed with them. Here the lesser and greater Star of Bethlehem stand either side of the page with their bulbs exposed at the soil line, roots and all, and a hoverfly crossing the gap between them. The plate names them itself, in the plate: *L. Ornithogalum minus*, *L. Ornithogalum maius*.

See it on your wall

The garden, brought indoors

Star of Bethlehem 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 (1614).
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 collection