Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Drawing of the Day: Plants and Insects, 1680

Page of Watercolors
Alexander Marshal
Crown Copyright
The Royal Collection
Images Courtesy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II




Alexander Marshal (c. 1620-82), the gentleman horticulturalist, was not a trained artist, but managed to produce, over thirty years, an impressive tome—his “florilegium” (flower book) which, in the end, contained 154 folios recording interesting and rare plants growing in the English gardens of his friends.

Here’s another page from Marshal’s Florilegium which was acquired by King George IV in the 1820s. This page shows Marshal’s watercolor sketches of four plants and two insects: a grasshopper and a silk worm. The plants depicted are carnations, fennel and damsons. 



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