Botanical print of a great nettle, by William Bradbury and William Mullett Williams. 1854. One of 21 'Nature Prints'.

Botanical print of a great nettle, depicting a green stalk with leaves growing along the stalk in pairs. Nearer to the centre of the plant there are small flowers, also in green.

The South Kensington Museum register refers to this acquisition (14765) as "A few leaves from the newly invented process of Nature printing by Bradbury and Evans. 1854. Price 21 Shillings". The same source lists the process as 'Phytoglyphy' - from two Greek words for 'nature' and 'carving'. In this process two sheets of metal of unequal hardness are used to 'sandwich' the object to be nature printed - here the leaf, which leaves its impression in the softer plate. The Bradbury and Evans technique was in fact the subject of litigation between the British company and the Imperial Printing Works, Vienna, which claimed prior invention. William Bradbury's son Henry had been sent to see the process in Vienna and was accused of industrial espionage by Alois Auer the Viennese director. Auer published a broadside condemning Bradbury entitled (in abbreviation): 'Conduct of a Young Englishman named Henry Bradbury [...] after his return to his Native Country, in opposition to the Acknowledgments of Foreign Countries concerning the natural-printing process [..] the Conduct of Bradbury ascertained by the members of the Imperial Printing Office'.

Nature printing was developed in Italy and patented in Britain by William Bradbury (active mid 1800s). It is a process in which an actual specimen, in this case a nettle, is used to create the printing surface. The printmaker places the specimen between two polished surfaces, one harder than the other, to create an impression in the softer surface. (Lead was often used for the softer surface, with copper or steel for the harder.) This is then treated to produce the printing plate. The result is an extraordinarily lifelike facsimile of the original specimen.

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