Henry Bradbury produced 51 plates of ferns through the difficult "nature printing" process for Thomas Moore's 1855 book, The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland. This process used the actual specimens to create the images. A dried fern would be placed between a soft lead and a hard steel plate, creating a three-dimensional image in the soft lead. This image was transferred to a copper plate for printing on soft paper, which gave the images a three-dimensional effect, along with great detail. As outstanding as the images were, the process was extremely difficult and soon disappeared. The plates for Moore's book may well represent the highpoint for the process. The same might be true for the young and talented Bradbury's life, as the young man committed suicide five years later at the age of 29. You can see some of these fabulous fern images at Arader's Denver gallery.

You may reach the Arader Galleries in New York at 212-628-3668 or info@aredergalleries.com. Their website is www.aradergalleries.com.