Saturday, November 29, 2014

Day 31 ~ WALLPAPER-A-DAY "Moses Harris"

Moses Harris (1730-1788)

This wallpaper requires a bit of personal history and more photos than my usual post. 

The story starts with Lena Fransioli’s great uncle, in 1830. The Reverend John McVickar S.T.D., was professor of moral and intellectual philosophy at Columbia College from 1817-1857. Upon his retirement, Columbia presented him with The Aurelian or, Natural History of English Insects, Moths and Butterflies, London 1778. This beautiful, first edition book was passed down to my wife and it gave me 45 original botanicals by Moses Harris, an artist, naturalist and scientific thinker.




High resolution reproductions of the botanicals in this book are available in many sizes and configurations as individual prints or giclée wallpaper with each plate up to 22” x 25”. We print them on fine art etching paper and deliver your print or wallpaper within two weeks of acceptance of sample.


We recently did two custom jobs with this paper for Tucker & Marks in San Francisco. It was very important that the panels fit corner to corner with no wrapping of the art. They provided detailed elevations and I worked very hard to make sure the panels fit perfectly on every wall. No photos of the install are available at this time but if any become available in the future, I will post them.

The install was done by Phil McDonald of The Precisionists. Phil said, "The panels were sublime and the client was thrilled". Thank you Phil, for a great job.

Here are 42 of the 45 plates.







3 comments:

  1. How wonderful!

    I am a direct descendant of Susannah Harris (sister of Moses Harris). She and her husband Samuel Haworth are my 7 x Grt. Grandparents.

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  2. Thank you, John, Mr. Harris was an amazing and multi talented man. His botanicals are a lovely addition to my wife, Lena's, artwork.

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  3. Yes. I was able to obtain a copy of The Aurelian which someone had reprinted. Got it cheap on Amazon!

    He did a portrait of my 7x grt grandfather Samuel Haworth and a portrait of my 6x Grt Grandfather Henry Haworth who was famous in his own right as a master carver producing designs for the world famous Carron Iron Works in Falkirk. Sadly he died young after contracting pneumonia.

    Samuel Haworth's Nephew and Godson, Samuel de Wilde, was also a world famous portrait painter. His work is exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery in London as well as the Garrick Club. He produced them to advertise west end plays. My local Art Gallery has the last pice of art he ever produced. Sadly it is in need of restoring.

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