Mint
The third herb from a book drawn to buy a man out of debtors’ prison.
- Work
- Mint (Mentha), Plate 290, from A Curious Herbal
- Artist / naturalist
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Origin & date
- London, 1737–1739
- Held by
- Wikimedia Commons (Wellcome Collection)
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
The third plate in this collection from Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal (1737–1739), recording garden mint with the same clean, uncolored precision as her parsley and rosemary — root, flowering spike, and separated seed each labeled for an apothecary's quick reference. Blackwell completed all 500 plates in roughly two years, drawing and engraving through the night at a rented room near the Chelsea Physic Garden while raising her children alone; contemporary botanists praised the book's accuracy even as they noted, with some surprise, that a woman had produced it single-handedly. What to notice: mint's square stem — a telltale feature of the entire mint family — is rendered with enough clarity that the plate still functions as a usable identification aid nearly three centuries later, exactly as Blackwell intended it to.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Wikimedia Commons (Wellcome Collection)’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
