Red Raspberry Bush - 50x70cm Poster

Rubus Idaeus, Red-fruited Raspberry

Contrary to what its Latin name suggests, the raspberry bush is not confined to the ancient Mount Ida. According to the scholar Suidas, all places offering a vast perspective were called Ida, whether seen from afar or revealing beautiful views to travelers.

The raspberry bush, meanwhile, spontaneously colonizes clearings and edges of freshly cut forests, whether at altitude or on the plain, a faithful companion of newfound light.

Cultivated since antiquity, the raspberry bush has given rise to several varieties with more generous fruits than their wild ancestors.

This plate depicts one of these perfected varieties. Its creeping roots produce numerous herbaceous stems each spring, straight, four to five feet high, armed with prickles and tinged with red in the sun. These stems die after fruiting only once, in their second winter, making the raspberry a perennial rather than a true shrub.

The alternate leaves consist of five leaflets at the base, three at the top, oval and acuminate, green above, whitish below. In spring, the upper buds develop into small branches bearing discreet white flowers, arranged in panicles. The fruit, an aggregation of small, single-seeded berries, ripens in June, detaching from its central receptacle at perfect maturity.

The raspberry then exhales a delicate fragrance, provided it is picked at the right time: too ripe, it becomes insipid and vulnerable to worms.

This plate is extracted from the Traité des Arbres Fruitiers by Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin, a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalist illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates of the golden age of illustrated botany.

• Each poster is printed with 12-color giclée printing, the benchmark for art workshops for the rendering of fine tones, subtle gradients, and the most delicate botanical details.
• 200 gsm paper, soft matte finish, 0.26 mm thick: a rendering close to the original engraving, clear, glare-free, designed for hanging.
• Printed on FSC certified paper, printed individually to order.
• Shipped in a rigid protective tube.