The Large Sunflower
Basilius Besler, 1613
$123
Print check at 11 x 14 in: 157 dpi, good. Trimmed 3.8% to the shape of the print.
Shipping to a US address: $24.80 for this piece, from the print room in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Basilius Besler's Hortus Eystettensis (1613) catalogued every plant in the garden of Johann Konrad von Gemmingen, the prince-bishop of Eichstätt — one of the first books to render garden flowers at true scale rather than shrink them to fit the page. The sunflower was still a novelty in 1613, a recent arrival from the Americas that European gardeners grew as much for spectacle as botany, and Besler gives it the star treatment: a single bloom filling the entire folio sheet, every spiraling floret in its seed-head individually engraved. What to notice: Besler organized his four-volume garden by season, not by plant family — this plate belonged to the summer volume, when the prince-bishop's garden would have actually looked like this. It is less a scientific record than a portrait of one man's very expensive hobby.
- Maker
- Basilius Besler
- Date
- 1613
- Medium of the original
- Plate
- Original held by
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · via Wikimedia Commons
- Credit
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston · via Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-00252
| Picture | 11 x 14 in |
|---|---|
| Outside size | 12.6 x 15.6 in |
| Depth | 0.9 in (22 mm) |
| Weight | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]] |
| Hanging | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]] |
| Material | Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing |
| Made in | Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi |
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | dpi | Grade | How it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 x 10 in | 220 | Excellent | Trimmed 2% |
| 11 x 14 in | 157 | Good | Trimmed 3.8% |
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 8 x 12 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 12 x 16 in | 137 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 12 x 18 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 16 x 20 in | 110 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 16 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 18 x 24 in | 91 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 20 x 30 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 24 x 30 in | 73 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 24 x 36 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
| 30 x 40 in | 55 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 36 x 48 in | 45 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 40 x 60 in | Wrong shape: a 18% crop |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 1,796 x 2,200 px, srgb
- Tone
- Darks 54, lights 202 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 134.25
- Notes
- Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned
Shipping for this piece to a US address is $24.80, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.
Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.
A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.
Cabinet of Curiosities
The old world’s book of wonders, for your wall.
All 69 pieces from Cabinet of Curiosities
