Decorate Local

By decorate local, I don't mean shop local…I mean put things up on your walls that reflect your local surroundings. Birds, insects, flowers and plants that you could see outside your window, in your local park or surroundings. As March roars outside my door, pelting us with ice and wind, it's comforting to look at these lovely antique nature illustrations. Over the winter, I was fortunate to find several volumes of The Natural History of New York published in Albany in 1851. Some were in better shape than others, but all had beautiful hand-colored plates. My favorites are the butterflies and insects- seen (in the center) framed on the gallery wall in my shop.

And for when spring arrives, we have a nice selection of vintage and antique nature guides to birds, animals and wild flowers.

For kitchen decorating, The Apples of New York, circa 1910, and The Peaches of New York, have beautiful color plates. We have some matted and ready to frame in stock, as well as both complete volumes for your coffee tables.

Or, for those of you who like fungi or foraging, we have some matted and ready to frame color lithos from the Edible Fungi of New York (1900, New York State Museum).

In the same decorating vein, although not local, the New York Times styles section recently featured a restaurant in London decorated with hundreds of color plates of butterflies. You can see the article here. I am a huge fan of repeating patterns, collections of like objects and book plates, so this article just jumped off the page at me.

While we do not have the same plates in stock (working on it!) we have many others with a similar aesthetic.