Study Room resource: Botanical illustration

Anonymous, 'Chicory

Anonymous
'Chicory, Cichorium intybus'
15th or 16th century
Gouache on vellum
Museum no. E.1045-1986

This gouache study is painted on vellum. It was probably made as an illustration for an early manuscript herbal, a kind of reference book used by apothecaries. Since these books were concerned with how plants could be used medicinally, rather than how they could be identified, the illustrations are usually poor representations of the species discussed in the text. Here we find a rather awkward study of chicory.

In the early 19th century, many years before they entered the Victoria & Albert Museum, this work was in the collection of a textile designer James Mitten. He probably used it as source material for his designs.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Anonymous, 'Lesser Periwinkle

Anonymous
'Lesser Periwinkle, Vinca minor'
15th or 16th century
Gouache on vellum
Museum no. E.1046-1986

This gouache study is painted on vellum. It was probably made as an illustration for an early manuscript herbal, a kind of reference book used by apothecaries. Since these books were concerned with how plants could be used medicinally, rather than how they could be identified, the illustrations are usually poor representations of the species discussed in the text. Here we find a flowerless periwinkle.

In the early 19th century, many years before they entered the Victoria & Albert Museum, this work was in the collection of a textile designer James Mitten. He probably used it as source material for his designs.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, 'Borage

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (about 1533-88)
'Borage, Borago officinalis'
About 1568
Watercolour
Museum no. AM.3267.k-1856

While some of Le Moyne's drawings are derived from the generalised illustrations of earlier herbals, others show him working directly from nature, including all the imperfections and particularities of individual specimens. For instance, in this study of borage, he not only depicts every tiny hair that covers the plant but also the damage suffered by the lower leaf and the broken stem.

The 59 Le Moyne watercolours in the V&A entered the Museum in 1856, when the institution purchased the album containing them for its exemplary early leather binding. Not until 1922 were the watercolours inside recognised as important works of art in their own right and, what is more, the work of Le Moyne de Morgues. They have since become amongst the most frequently requested works on paper in the Print Room.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Pierre Bulliard, 'Cuckoo's Pint

Pierre Bulliard (1742-93)
'Cuckoo's Pint, Arum maculatum'
Plate from 'Herbier de la France'
Published in parts between 1780 and 1795
Colour engraving
Museum no. 29638.532

This print is one of hundreds of illustrations from Bulliard's Herbier de la France, published between 1780 and 1795. The way in which the book was organised provides an interesting example of the confusion that reigned during the period over correct classification rules.

In terms of labelling each plant, Bulliard fully embraced the classification system developed by the Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-78) in the mid 18th century. This system is still in use today, and relies on grouping plants according to their reproductive similarities and giving each species a fixed, two-part Latin name.

However, in terms of determining where in the book each plant came, Bulliard retained a much older convention in grouping them according to their usefulness to humans; whether they were edible, medicinal or, like the cuckoo's pint, poisonous.

Though this pattern had made sense in the herbals of earlier centuries, by the late 18th century it was becoming rather out of date as people began to order plants alphabetically by Linnaean name.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Jacob van Huysum, 'Gentian

Jacob van Huysum (about 1687-1740)
'Gentian, Gentiana sp.'
Bodycolour
Museum no. 4274

While offering us scant botanical detail, this diminutive study nevertheless captures the essence of the alpine Gentian. Many of van Huysum's watercolour originals were engraved by others and used to illustrate publications devoted to new and rare species of the early 18th century.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Simon Verelst, 'Tulips

Simon Verelst (1644-1721)
'Tulips, Tulipa sp.'
Watercolour
Museum no. 263-1876

Botanical illustration and flower painting are quite separate occupations: the former concerned with the accurate depiction of plants for the purposes of identification and record, the latter dedicated to the beauty of the passing bloom.

Simon Verelst, who came to Britain from Holland in 1669, made his living from the latter. He was especially given to painting impossible bouquets made up of flowers from different seasons. These tulips were probably intended for inclusion in a later painting, where they could be placed together with the roses, peonies and carnations still yet to bloom.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

William Kilburn, 'Dandelion

William Kilburn (1745-1818)
'Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale'
Plate from 'Flora Londinensis'
1777-8
Engraving, coloured by hand
Museum no. E.455-1996

In this illustration by William Kilburn we find a dandelion bestowed with the stubborn strength that makes it one of the most ubiquitous and trodden-on of all British plants; something which Geoffrey Grigson remarked upon in his 1958 publication The Englishman's Flora:

'Dandelion is a brave plant. Far away from its European home and its proper fields, you see Dandelions on a scrap of wasteland under the factories of Detroit or Philadelphia, still spreading their leaves and opening their small suns after the frost has killed everything else.'

This print is a plate from William Curtis' s Flora Londinensis, a serialised record of plants growing in and around London published between 1777 and 1798. It was through the journal that Kilburn earned a reputation for producing informative and confident botanical illustrations. He was to capitalise on this experience when later he turned to textile design.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Samuel Holden, 'Gesneriad sp.'. Museum no. 8377.2

Samuel Holden (active1830s and 1840s)
'Gesneriad sp.' (incorrectly inscribed in pencil achimenes spe. Nov. )
Pencil and watercolour
Museum no. 8377.2

Samuel Holden specialised in illustrating species introduced into private collections from abroad, many of which were later engraved and published in journals such as the Botanical Magazine. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds 128 works by Holden.

This drawing shows a species introduced into Britain. It is an incomplete study of an unidentified gesneriad, a plant native to the tropics.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Samuel Holden, 'Showy Banksia

Samuel Holden (active1830s and 1840s)
'Showy Banksia, Banksia Speciosa'
1838
Watercolour
Museum no. 8277.9

Samuel Holden specialised in illustrating species introduced into private collections from abroad, many of which were later engraved and published in journals such as the Botanical Magazine. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds 128 works by Holden.

This drawing shows a species introduced into Britain. It describes the Showy Banksia, an Australian discovery named after Sir Joseph Banks (1744-1820), the so-called 'father of Australian botany.'

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Peter Brown, 'Granadilla

Peter Brown (active about 1758-99)
'Granadilla, Passiflora quadrangularis'
Gouache on vellum
Museum no. D.2-1893

Peter Brown was Botanical Painter to George, Prince of Wales (the future King George IV). This granadilla flower, a type of passionflower native to South America, was very possibly studied at Kew: the Royal Botanic Gardens established by George's grandmother, Princess Augusta, in 1759.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Roger Phillips, 'Winter Aconite

Roger Phillips
'Winter Aconite, Eranthis hyemalis'
Plate from 'Wild Flowers of Britain
1977
Photograph
Museum no. E.578.2-1994
© Roger Phillips

This photograph is one of a series Roger Phillips produced for the 1977 field guide Wild Flowers of Britain. Moving away from the established practice of arranging species by plant family, the photographer thought his field guide would be of more use to the amateur naturalist if the plates were organised according to flowering season.

Interestingly, though it might be imagined that photography would have rendered botanical drawing redundant, the camera lens cannot draw out important features in the same way that the artist's pencil can.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Jenny Brasier, 'Cyclamen intaminatum'

Jenny Brasier, born 1936
'Cyclamen intaminatum'
1993
Pencil and watercolour
Museum no. E.534-1994
With kind permission of Jenny Brasier

This drawing is in effect a summary of the variants the artist found within one species of cyclamen, the Cyclamen intaminatum. It was produced as a working drawing, a final version of which would appear in the Cyclamen Society Journal. To facilitate subsequent works, the artist made detailed notes on the plant's pertinent features and the palette she had used.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Basil Besler, Illustrations from the book 'Hortus Eystettensis'

Basil Besler (1561-1629)
Illustrations from the book 'Hortus Eystettensis'
Tassel Grape, Hyacinth or Hyacinthus Comosus Spurius, Bluebell or Hyacinthus Anglic Cinericeus, Heath Spotted Orchid or Palma Christi maculata, Bog Arum or Dracunculus Aquatilis, Muscari comosum, Endymion nonscriptus, Dactylorhiza maculata, Calla palustris, from Volume 1 of 'Hortus Eystettensis'
1613
Engraving coloured by hand
Museum no. Circ.526-1967

The Hortus Eystettensis, the book for which this image was intended, illustrated all the plants growing in a single Nuremberg garden. As the first publication of its kind, it triggered a rush of similar books commissioned by the owners of notable gardens both for their personal delight and as a way of showing others that they had the means to cultivate such outstanding floral collections.

Because these books, or 'florilegia' as they came to be known, were produced for unscientific purposes, they rarely contained any useful text. Nor did the illustrations show much of the plant except the flower. Nevertheless they did provide botanists with a record of the new and exotic species arriving in Europe from abroad, and were also useful to designers as a pattern source.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP2.

Georg Dionysius Ehret, 'American Turk's cap Lily

Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-70)
American Turk's cap Lily, Lilium superbum
About 1750-3
Watercolour and gouache on vellum
Museum no. D.589-1886

Georg Dionysius Ehret was an outstandingly successful botanical artist with connections across Europe. This meant that he was well-placed to capture new species soon after they arrived on the continent from abroad. For example, the American Turk's-cap Lily illustrated here was studied in the garden of Peter Collinson, an important figure in the field of early botanical investigation.

Amongst Ehret's associates was the Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-1778), the first scientist to classify plants not according to the way people used them, but rather by the physical similarities between their reproductive parts.

The influence of Linnaeus's new system is apparent in each of these three works: whereas earlier illustrations had shown plants in their entirety, botanical artists were now beginning to privilege the reproductive elements - the flowers and the fruit - above other plant parts.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP2.

Georg Dionysius Ehret, Plate from 'Plantae et Papiliones Rariores'

Georg Dionysius Ehret
Plate from 'Plantae et Papiliones Rariores'
Abutilon sp., Convolvulus arvensis, Alsine sp., Iris sp.
1748
Coloured etching
Museum no. E.221.h-1887

Georg Dionysius Ehret was an outstandingly successful botanical artist with connections across Europe. This meant that he was well-placed to capture new species soon after they arrived on the continent from abroad.

Amongst Ehret's associates was the Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-1778), the first scientist to classify plants not according to the way people used them, but rather by the physical similarities between their reproductive parts.

The influence of Linnaeus's new system is apparent in each of these three works: whereas earlier illustrations had shown plants in their entirety, botanical artists were now beginning to privilege the reproductive elements - the flowers and the fruit - above other plant parts. The dissected seeds became common illustrative devices.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP2.

Georg Dionysius Ehret, 'Bull Bay

Georg Dionysius Ehret
'Bull Bay, Magnolia grandiflora'
1743
Watercolour and gouache on vellum
Museum no. D.583-1886

Georg Dionysius Ehret was an outstandingly successful botanical artist with connections across Europe. This meant that he was well-placed to capture new species soon after they arrived on the continent from abroad.

Amongst Ehret's associates was the Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-1778), the first scientist to classify plants not according to the way people used them, but rather by the physical similarities between their reproductive parts.

The influence of Linnaeus's new system is apparent in each of these three works: whereas earlier illustrations had shown plants in their entirety, botanical artists were now beginning to privilege the reproductive elements - the flowers and the fruit - above other plant parts. The  separate stages of plant development became common illustrative devices.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP2.

Joseph Constantine Stadler and Peter Charles Henderson, 'The Maggot Bearing Stapelia

Engraved by Joseph Constantine Stadler (worked 1780-1812) after a painting by Peter Charles Henderson (worked 1791-1829)
'The Maggot Bearing Stapelia, Stapelia sp.'
Plate from Robert John Thornton's 'Temple of Flora'
1801
Colour aquatint with additional colour by hand
Published between 1799 and 1807
Museum no. Circ.524-1967

The Temple of Flora (1799-1807), from which this plate is drawn, remains a highly unusual publication. The illustrations were undertaken by portrait and landscape artists, resulting in some extraordinary images of botanically inaccurate plants placed against fantastical backdrops: an unorthodox device within the conventions of botanical illustration.

Here the Maggot-bearing Stapelia - a plant that produces a putrid odour to attract flies - assumes enormous proportions and is set against a background more akin to a Scottish rock garden than to its native southern African habitat.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP2.

Anonymous, 'Passionflower

Anonymous
'Passionflower, Passiflora incarnata'
Watercolour
Museum no. 7890-21

This drawing shows a passionflower, so named because of its association with Christ's crown of thorns. From the inscriptions we know that it was presented to the Horticultural Society of London (later the Royal Horticultural Society) by Baron Joseph Franz von Jacquin (1766-1839), son of the famous Baron Jacquin of the University of Vienna.

In the inscription Joseph Franz comments that it is a better illustration than the 'old one' published in his father's Icones Plantarum Rariorum of 1782-93.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP2.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, 'Wild Strawberry and Female Emperor Moth

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (about 1533-88)
'Wild Strawberry and Female Emperor Moth, Fragaria vesca and Saturnia pavonia'
Watercolour
Museum no.  AM.3267.bb-1856

Whilst some of Le Moyne's drawings are derived from the generalised illustrations of earlier books, others show him working directly from nature, including all the imperfections and particularities of individual specimens.

With its mouth-wateringly realistic berries but strangely sinuous form this drawing of a wild strawberry lies somewhere in between: though clearly familiar with the living plant, the general outline is derived from an earlier illustration by the botanist Fuchs. The pinks on the other hand appear to have been drawn straight from nature.

The 59 Le Moyne watercolours in the V&A entered the Museum in 1856, when the institution purchased the album containing them for its exemplary early leather binding.

Not until 1922 were the watercolours inside recognised as important works of art in their own right, and what is more, the work of Le Moyne de Morgues. They have since become amongst the most frequently-requested works on paper in the Print Room.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP3.

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, 'Three Pinks and Two Marigolds

Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (about 1533-88)
'Three Pinks and Two Marigolds, Dianthus sp. and Tagetes sp.'
Watercolour
Museum no. AM.3267.f-1856

Whilst some of Le Moyne's drawings are derived from the generalised illustrations of earlier books, others show him working directly from nature, including all the imperfections and particularities of individual specimens.

 With its mouth-wateringly realistic berries but strangely sinuous form this drawing of a wild strawberry lies somewhere in between: though clearly familiar with the living plant, the general outline is derived from an earlier illustration by the botanist Fuchs. The pinks on the other hand appear to have been drawn straight from nature.

The 59 Le Moyne watercolours in the V&A entered the Museum in 1856, when the institution purchased the album containing them for its exemplary early leather binding. Not until 1922 were the watercolours inside recognised as important works of art in their own right, and what is more, the work of Le Moyne de Morgues. They have since become amongst the most frequently-requested works on paper in the Print Room.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP3.

Pierre-Joseph Redouté, 'Canterbury Bells

Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840)
'Canterbury Bells, Campanula medium'
1787
Watercolour on vellum
Museum no. E.91-1947

Redouté made this watercolour as a gift to the botanist James Lee, whilst staying in his house in Hammersmith in 1787. Such was Redouté's skill that over two hundred years later the flowers remain alive on the page and we can almost hear the insects buzzing.

This piece is also a good example of the ease with which Redouté moved between painting plants professionally and for enjoyment. During his career he worked alongside established botanists producing drawings for serious study whilst simultaneously making illustrations for publications devoted to nothing more than the simple enjoyment of beautiful flowers.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP3.

John Miller, 'Citrus sp.'

John Miller (1715-1790)
'Citrus sp.'
Plate from 'An Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus'
Published in parts between 1770 and 1777
Engraving
Coloured by hand
Museum no. E.42-1892

The Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-78) was the first scientist to classify plants not according to the way people used them, but rather by the physical similarities between their reproductive parts. Once classified, each species was given a fixed two-part Latin name reflecting where in the plant world it belonged.

This print was made as plate for an English publication An Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus. As the title suggests, there was a strict adherence to Linnaean principles: the plants were ordered in the volumes alphabetically by Latin name, while the dissections at the foot of the page emphasised the importance of the reproductive parts.

Linnaeus himself praised the illustrations, saying that they were 'more beautiful and more accurate than any that had been seen since the world began'.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP3.

John Miller, 'Thistle sp.'

John Miller (1715-1790)
'Thistle sp.'
Plate from 'An Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus'
Published in parts between 1770 and 1777
Engraving
Coloured by hand
Museum no. E.48-1892

The Swedish botanist Linnaeus (1707-78) was the first scientist to classify plants not according to the way people used them, but rather by the physical similarities between their reproductive parts. Once classified, each species was given a fixed two-part Latin name reflecting where in the plant world it belonged.

This print was made as plate for an English publication An Illustration of the Sexual System of Linnaeus. As the title suggests, there was a strict adherence to Linnaean principles: the plants were ordered in the volumes alphabetically by Latin name, while the dissections at the foot of the page emphasised the importance of the reproductive parts.

Linnaeus himself praised the illustrations, saying that they were 'more beautiful and more accurate than any that had been seen since the world began'.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP3.

A. Power, 'Hydrangea hortensia'. Museum no. D.1393-1891

A. Power (active late 18th and early 19th century) 
'Hydrangea hortensia'
Watercolour
Museum no. D.1393-1891

This bold illustration of a hydrangea is the work of A. Power, a Maidstone-based artist active around 1800. Very little is known of the artist's life or identity, although his or her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880.

Power's work is in the style of Georg Dionysus Ehret (1708-70), and it is possible that he or she was one of his many pupils.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP3.

Anonymous Chinese artist, 'Peanut

Anonymous Chinese artist
'Peanut, Arachis hypogaea'
Late 18th or early 19th century
Watercolour
Museum no. E.1754-1924

As China opened up to foreign trade in the eighteenth century European botanists were compelled to record the plants they encountered for the first time. Rather than return home with dry and lifeless specimens, native artists were employed to produce drawings from living species, particularly around the ports of Macao and Canton.

Though Chinese artists could boast a long tradition of flower painting, their abstract style was very different from the precise botanical illustration undertaken in Europe. In order to satisfy their patrons' tastes, these native artists began to study European examples and to adopt the same conventions.

This study of a peanut plant shows the characteristically hybrid style that emerged. Attesting to its European influence, the drawing is arranged on a blank page and every detail, including the last nibbled leaf is recorded. Nevertheless, there are still Chinese traits such as the flattened perspective.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.

Anonymous, 'Snake's Head Fritillary

Anonymous
'Snake's Head Fritillary, Fritillaria meleagris'
Late 18th or early 19th century
Watercolour
Museum no. E.4107-1911

Celebrated in one 16th century book for 'beautifieing…our gardens, and the bosomes of the beautifull', the Snake's Head Fritillary has been a favourite of botanical illustrators.

In the notes to this anonymous French watercolour the artist comments on the plant's rarity, its native Dutch terrain and its distinctive purple and white chequered markings. It is thought that the drawing was used in the design of wallpapers or textiles.

This print can be found in Print Room Box DP1.