Featon's Art Album (1889)

Volume One of the Art Album of New Zealand Flora was a masterful collaboration between Mrs Featon, an accomplished watercolourist, her husband, and Bock &Cousins. The firm's exceptional skill in colour lithography, using at times 14 or more separate colour press passes for each image, as well as their meticulous attention to detail in the design and layout of the letterpress merited high praise: "New Zealand is not behindhand in the production of the highest class of chromo-lithographic work, and that the possibility of competing with the older countries in the issue of works of excellence is more than earned" (p. ix). Unfortunately, this project bankrupted the company, the partnership between the two principals was dissolved, and no other further volumes were ever issued.