From Copperplate to Color Lithography: On the Modernization of an Illustrated Flora 1800-1900

In 1900 the Swedish botanist Carl Lindman was assigned responsibility for the republication of a one-hundred-year old illustrated flora, J. W. Palmstruch’s Svensk botanik (1802–43). The old hand-colored copperplates were meticulously examined, corrected, and supplied with new magnified details and then printed in color lithographs. This article closely examines, from a book historical perspective, how the new form governs the content of the plates in the new flora. It also discusses the process of copying illustrations as an integral part of more general scientific practice, as the plates in Palmstruch’s flora are closely connected with several other European floras.