Helleboris viridis | Vintage Botanical Print

Vintage Botanical Print | 16th-Century Herbal Illustration | Antique Plant Art | Printable Wall Decor | Digital Download

Add a touch of botanical history to your home with Helleboris viridis, a striking watercolor illustration from the 16th century by Italian artist and botanist Gherardo Cibo. Part of Mattioli’s expanded edition of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica, this piece showcases the green hellebore in bold detail, with expressive foliage and a whimsical landscape scene.

Perfect for fans of vintage botanical prints, natural history decor, and printable antique floral art with rich cultural and scientific roots.

➤ Instant digital download
➤ High-resolution file, ready to print
➤ Ideal for cottagecore interiors, botanical galleries, herbalist studios, or academic decor

Pixartiko Collective – Usage License

Prints allowed for personal use and resale only as physical products in local shops. Use in other physical goods permitted if pixartiko.com is credited when possible.
Digital resale, sharing, or publishing is strictly forbidden.
Designs are not public domain and cannot be distributed online.

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Print Sizes

🖼 Included Print Sizes (No Cropping Needed)

This high resolution digital file is optimized for printing at the following standard sizes, no cropping or borders required. Just download, print, and frame:

Inches	Centimeters	Suggested Use
11.7 x 16.5	A3 – 29.7 x 42	Wall art, poster, vertical frame
8.3 x 11.7	A4 – 21 x 29.7	Standard frame, home office decor
5.8 x 8.3	A5 – 14.8 x 21	Small prints, journaling inserts
4.1 x 5.8	A6 – 10.5 x 14.8	Greeting card, mini gift
7 x 10	17.8 x 25.4	Portrait print, versatile framing
5 x 7	12.7 x 17.8	Classic photo size, shelf display

 

🖨️ All sizes are print-ready at 300 DPI, maintaining the original image ratio. No cropping or borders required.

📂 Your download includes:

• 1 high resolution JPEG file (2134 x 2988 px).
• Artistic Declaration Certificate in PDF.
• Free gift: The Ages of Painting guide — a visual journey through the history of painting.

🎨 Need a different size or format?
No problem! Just send me a message and I’ll be happy to adapt it for you.

Art Review

“Helleborus viridis” by Gherardo Cibo: A Monument to Wildness and Wonder

In “Helleborus viridis”, the great Renaissance artist and botanist Gherardo Cibo transforms a single medicinal plant into a towering emblem of natural majesty. What might have been a modest herbal plate becomes, under his brush, an immersive microcosm: a wild hellebore set against a dreamy landscape, watched in awe by miniature human figures who seem both dwarfed and uplifted by its scale.

The Helleborus viridis, or green hellebore, is shown in full vitality — its wide, jagged leaves fanned out like the spokes of a sun, and its pale green blossoms unfolding with serene intensity. Cibo’s botanical precision is matched only by his expressive imagination: the roots are exposed like veins of the earth, anchoring the plant to a rocky, pastoral terrain that blurs the line between illustration and storytelling.

Beneath the giant hellebore, two men gaze upward, one pointing toward the sky, the other shielding his eyes from the sun or wonder. Their gesture is more than observational; it is devotional. In Cibo’s world, plants are not just specimens to be studied — they are revelations, conduits between man and the sublime. A bird sweeps past the blooms, animating the vertical ascent of the composition, as if nature itself is responding to the plant’s quiet power.

The background unfolds in subtle purples, pinks, and greens, with cliffs, trees, and winding paths that recall both the scientific landscapes of herbals and the allegorical vistas of early humanist painting. There is something deliberately theatrical about the entire composition — as if the hellebore has been cast as the lead in a sacred botanical drama.

More than a study in morphology, “Helleborus viridis” is a reflection on scale, awe, and the place of humanity in nature. By placing small figures in communion with a towering plant, Cibo reminds us that reverence begins in observation — and that every stem and petal holds not only chemical properties, but spiritual significance.

This is not just Renaissance illustration. This is ecological philosophy in watercolor. And Gherardo Cibo, once again, shows himself to be less a recorder of nature than one of its finest interpreters.