Set of 4 large antique French Herbariums 19" x 12½"

A collection of four antique French herbariums, each comprising a pressed botanical specimen mounted on warm cream paper and presented in contemporary pale wooden frames under glass. The compositions include lanceolate leaves, a branching umbel, and a delicate flowering spray with muted lavender and russet tones, each with a printed Herbier label noting collection details. Paper shows gentle toning with scattered foxing and a few minor fragment losses to petals and stems; newly reframed and relabelled, the ensemble is in very good, timeworn condition.

The herbier tradition flourished in France throughout the 19th century, when students, professors, and amateur naturalists assembled pressed specimens for study and classification under Linnaean taxonomy. Plants were dried, then fixed to sheets with handwritten or printed étiquettes recording Latin names, locality, and dates, a practice encouraged during the Third Republic when natural science became central to education. These examples, likely provincial in origin, reflect that sober scientific aesthetic, their restrained layouts and neat cartouches evoking the measured savoir-faire of academic botanique while updated framing prepares them for modern display.

Ideal for a study, library, or garden room, the four can be hung as a grid above a console or spaced along a hallway for a quiet rhythm. Their pale timber frames and softly aged papers pair gracefully with French country furniture, Gustavian paint finishes, or crisp contemporary interiors. They lend natural history character to a kitchen, sunroom, or powder room, and look refined layered on open shelving beside glass apothecary jars and woven baskets.

Each measures approx. 19" high x 12½" wide x 0½" deep 
Each measures approx. 48cm high x 32cm wide x 1cm deep