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Leila Lyons quoted in Southern Accents article "Antique Botanical Prints"
March 1, 2008 - April 30, 2008
Click here to download the article
 Southern Accents' March/April issue contains an article on exotic citrus fruits by Jesuit scholar Giovanni Battista Ferrari, and features quotes by Leila Lyons. These prints were carefully documented by Jesuit scholar Giovanni Battista Ferrari in the seventeenth century. Lyons Ltd. has a large collection of Ferrari prints as well as similar fruit prints.
If you enter "ferrari" in the advanced search box on the Lyons Ltd. website, you will find our wonderful selection of Ferrari prints depicting botanicals and fruits. Please don't hesitate to contact the gallery at (800) LYONS-LTD to learn more!
Enjoy the full article below:
ANTIQUE BOTANICAL PRINTS by Julie Cole Miller
In the 17th Century, Jesuit scholar Giovanni Battista Ferrari set out to document exotic citrus fruits, equating them with the mythic golden apples fetched by Hercules as one of his 12 labors. In the process, Ferrari created a remarkable visual account of lemons, limes, and oranges in his Hesperides sive de malorum aureorum cultura et usu libri quatuor of 1646. "At the time, citrus was liquid gold," says Leila Lyons, founder of Lyons Limited Antique Prints. "The trees were from Persia, the province of royalty, and for the first time they were being grown in pots by noblemen in Italy." Engravings detailed the fruits full-size and often in cross section, each labeled with its Latin name on a sinuous ribbon. The cross section shows the fruit's rind, which is thicker than what you find today, says Lyons. Though the original engravings were black-and-white, hand-coloring done in the 18th century is often found on the prints today.
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