Antique Framed Botanical Watercolor, Blue Flowers on Red Velvet, Gilt Frame

A small framed botanical watercolor, blue flowers on green stems and leaves freely painted on cream paper, set behind a steep red silk velvet bevel matt in a gilt relief-cast frame of leaves and fruit. Small framed florals like this belong to the late-19th-century tradition of domestic botanical study, when amateur watercolor painting was a common parlor pursuit and small floral compositions were framed as gifts and wall ornaments. The hand is fresh and direct, the blue blooms and broad green leaves laid in with confident washes rather than the printed key-line of a colored plate. Unsigned, so the painter is not named; the gilt frame is worn to the red bole at the corners, with a plain wood verso and faint pencil inscriptions on the back.

A small Victorian botanical study of a flowering borage — Borago officinalis — set into an exceptional cast brass rose-and-leaf frame with a deep red velvet matt. The botanical subject, finely hand-coloured with the characteristic star-shaped blue flowers, prominent black anthers, and bristly leaves of the species, was likely lifted from one of the popular illustrated botanical serials of the early-to-mid Victorian period (Loudon, Maund, Curtis's Botanical Magazine, or a kindred publication, c. 1830–1860).