This month we are featuring a collection of twelve botanical prints, eleven of which are from the early 19th century and one from the late 18th century. Each plate is an engraving on copper and coloured by hand. Together they would have formed parts of bound editions of botanical works, accompanied by technical information about the plants featured.

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine

Eleven of the botanical prints come from various volumes of a publication called Curtis’s Botanical Magazine. This magazine was established in 1787 by William Curtis.

To put the magazine in context, it was published during a period which was famous (or notorious) for early plant hunters from Britain and Europe, travelling around the world to collect plants to adorn our gardens. This magazine would have been fascinating to gardeners and perhaps introduced new plants to British people for the first time.

Gardening had become of interest to not just the upper classes (who were more interested in creating 'landscapes') but to society as a whole, at a time when a wide variety of flowering plants became more accessible.

Indeed, the magazine has remained successful and is still published today, although the images are no longer painstakingly coloured by hand.

Below are the eleven prints in the University's Fine Art Collection from Curtis's Botanical Magazine. They date from 1809 to 1823.

English Botany

The publication English Botany, or, Coloured Figures of British Plants, with their Essential Characters, synonyms and Places of Growth comprised a set 36 volumes of botanical illustrations and descriptions, which were issued monthly parts between 1790 to 1814. It was the brainchild of the botanical illustrator and natural historian James Sowerby (1757-1822). He drew all the illustrations, edited and published the set.

However, the publication is often attributed to Sir Edward James Smith who was founder of the Linnean Society. This is because he contributed the technical descriptions of the plants. Initially Smith was hesitant to be associated with the publication, as he considered himself to be of a higher standing than Sowerby whom he considered to be merely an ‘artisan’. However, as each issue gained in popularity, he eventually insisted on his name being the most prominent on the title page, with Sowerby being described as ‘the illustrator’.

Our twelfth print in this collection of botanical prints has been identified as coming from this publication. It dates to 1792.

If you would like to read historical volumes of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, including full text and images, click here.

Acknowledgements:

• Gale Primary Sources: The historical, biographical, literary, and scientific magazine. The history of Europe, for the year 1799. With an obituary and biographical sketches of persons deceased in that year, &c. &c. By Robert Bisset, LL.D. With the assistance of other literary gentlemen 1800, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas
• Wikimedia Commmons Images: (portrait of William Curtis)
• Wikipedia