Biodiversity Heritage Library - Program news and collection highlights from BHL
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured Books
    • All Featured Books
    • Book of the Month Series
  • User Stories
  • Campaigns
    • Fossil Stories
    • Garden Stories
    • Monsters Are Real
    • Page Frights
    • Her Natural History
    • Earth Optimism 2020
  • Tech Blog
  • Visit BHL
Home
News
Featured Books
    All Featured Books
    Book of the Month Series
User Stories
Campaigns
    Fossil Stories
    Garden Stories
    Monsters Are Real
    Page Frights
    Her Natural History
    Earth Optimism 2020
Tech Blog
Visit BHL
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured Books
    • All Featured Books
    • Book of the Month Series
  • User Stories
  • Campaigns
    • Fossil Stories
    • Garden Stories
    • Monsters Are Real
    • Page Frights
    • Her Natural History
    • Earth Optimism 2020
  • Tech Blog
  • Visit BHL
Biodiversity Heritage Library - Program news and collection highlights from BHL

All posts tagged with botanical-illustration

Blog Reel, Campaigns, Her Natural History

The Popular and Prolific Ms. Pratt

Read the full blog post

During the Victorian era, many gifted women participated in what has been called the “Golden Age of botanical art,” reflecting both a surge in gardening interests across English society, as well advances in book-making technology (Burns, Kramer). Though virtually unknown today, Anne Pratt (1806-1893) was one of the most prolific and popular artists and writers of this time, ultimately producing twenty published works that were loved for their handsome and accurate illustrations, and helping to create interest in flower study in the general public.

Continue reading
March 29, 2019byGretchen Rings
Blog Reel, Campaigns, Her Natural History

Passionate pioneers – increasing access to botanical artwork by women artists

Read the full blog post

Historically, female botanists and botanical artists were rarely given as much credit as their male counterparts. Botanical art was often viewed as a pleasant pastime for women who had time on their hands whilst their husbands were at work, and the contribution that these women made to the advancement of scientific illustration was often undermined.

To highlight the importance of these historically, scientifically and socially significant collections, Kew’s Library, Art and Archives department, in collaboration with the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, is in the process of digitising its out of copyright work by women artists, spanning several centuries.

Kew holds over 200,000 prints and drawings, and this working resource is available to staff and visitors to the department, often providing a reference tool against preserved herbarium specimens. The ultimate aim of this collaborative effort is to ensure that high quality images of illustrations and their associated data is safely stored in digital format for future generations.

Continue reading
March 13, 2019byJoanna Durant
Blog Reel, Featured Books

The Botanical Art of Redouté

Read the full blog post
The most celebrated flower painter of quite possibly the entire history of botanical art is Pierre-Joseph Redouté. Nicknamed “the Raphael of flowers,” Redouté published over 2,100 plates depicting over 1,800 species – many of which had never before been illustrated for publication – throughout his career (University Libraries 2013). Many of Redouté’s publications are available in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and a selection of these works is examined in this article. Born in 1759 at St. Hubert in the present-day Belgian province of Luxembourg, Redouté and his two brothers – who also became artists – were descended from a family of Belgian painters.
Continue reading
June 29, 2017byGrace Costantino
Blog Reel, Featured Books

A Pot of Basil in Every Household

Read the full blog post
In Johann Prüss’ late 15-century herbal, Ortus Sanitatis (Garden of Health), a bushy basil plant is portrayed growing in a decorative container. The book, a popular pharmacopoeia of various remedies drawn from ancient and medieval authors, was intended to be practical.
Continue reading
June 27, 2017byJulia Blakely
BHL News, Blog Reel

Announcing the New Valentine’s Day Collection in the BHL Store

Read the full blog post

Get your valentine the perfect card or gift with the new Valentine’s Day Collection in the BHL Store!The collection includes products featuring vintage botanical art from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Shop the BHL Valentine’s Day Collection today!
Continue reading
January 30, 2017byMichelle Strizever
Blog Reel, Featured Books

Madame Vincent’s Studies of Flowers and Fruits

Read the full blog post
Études de fleurs et de fruits: peints d’après nature by Henriette Vincent is a book of beautiful botanical illustrations.  With 48 color plates of stipple engravings of flowers and fruits, this work was first published in Paris, France in 1820. This is a scarce volume with only a few copies known to exist in libraries. In his Flower and fruit prints of the 18th and early 19th centuries, Gordon Dunthorne calls this book “…among the most exquisite of all flower prints in their beauty and delicacy of execution.” Among the fruit depicted are plums, currants, cherries, apricots, grapes, apples, pears, peaches, raspberries, and strawberries.
Continue reading
April 28, 2016byLeora Siegel
Blog Reel, Featured Books

When New England was New

Read the full blog post

It is a small book, palm-size, with pages of less-than-fine paper, the well-worn letters of the type sometimes carelessly inked. The sparse woodcut illustrations are child-like in their simplicity and straight-forwardness. Yet John Josselyn’s New-Englands rarities discovered, printed in London in 1672, drew me in as I went about cataloging the work. Intrigued by the title and the early date of publication, I found myself reading an account of the landscape of my past, from Boston, “down east” (that is, up the coast as represented in the above illustration) to my place of birth, and points all around.

Continue reading
March 31, 2016byJulia Blakely
Page 1 of 212»

Help Support BHL

BHL’s existence depends on the financial support of its patrons. Help us keep this free resource alive!

Donate Now

search

About BHL

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. Headquartered at the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives in Washington, D.C., BHL operates as a worldwide consortium of natural history, botanical, research, and national libraries working together to digitize the natural history literature held in their collections and make it freely available for open access as part of a global “biodiversity community.”

Follow BHL

Join Our Mailing List

Sign up to receive the latest news, content highlights, and promotions.

Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Subscribe to Blog Via RSS

Subscribe to the blog RSS feed to stay up-to-date on all the latest BHL posts.

Access RSS Feed

BHL on Twitter

Tweets by @BioDivLibrary

Inspiring Discovery through Free Access to Biodiversity Knowledge.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library makes it easier than ever for you to access the information you need to study and explore life on Earth…for free, anytime, anywhere.

62+ Million Pages of
Biodiversity Literature Online.

EXPLORE

Tools and Services
to Transform Research.

EXPLORE

300,000+
Illustrations on Flickr.

EXPLORE

 

ABOUT | BLOG AUTHORS | HARMFUL CONTENT | PRIVACY | SITE MAP | TERMS OF USE

Download Adobe Acrobat Reader