BOTANICAL ART & ARTISTS
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  • HISTORY
    • What is Botanical Art?
    • What is Botanical Illustration?
    • Botanical Art History Books >
      • The Art of Botanical Illustration (Blunt)
      • Book Review: Treasures of Botanical Art
    • Herbals
    • Florilegia and Flora
    • Patrons of Botanical Art >
      • About Leonhart Fuchs
      • About Basilius Besler
    • Past Masters - Botanical Art and Illustration >
      • About Maria Sibylla Merian
      • About Elizabeth Blackwell
      • About Georg Dionysius Ehret
      • About Franz Bauer
      • About Sydney Parkinson
      • About Pierre-Joseph Redouté
      • About Marianne North
    • Famous Asian Botanical Artists (600-1900)
    • 20th & 21st Century Botanical Artists >
      • About Arthur Harry Church
      • About Margaret Mee
      • About Mary Grierson
      • About Raymond Booth
      • About Rory McEwen
      • About Pandora Sellars
    • Botanical Photographers
    • Botanical and Herbal Art Online
  • ARTISTS
    • Botanical Artists in the UK
    • Botanical Artists in North America
    • Botanical Artists in Europe
    • Botanical Artists in Australia and New Zealand
    • Botanical Artists in Asia
    • Botanical Artists in Africa
    • Botanical Artists in Latin America
    • Botanical Printmakers, Photographers, Sculptors et al
    • The Jill Smythies Award
    • Botanical Artists on Facebook
    • Botanical Art Blogs
  • Exhibitions
    • Calls for Entries - OPEN exhibitions
    • Online Exhibitions >
      • ARCHIVE: Online Botanical Art Exhibitions
    • RHS Botanical Art & Photography Shows >
      • ARCHIVE RHS Botanical Art Shows 2007-2021
      • Exhibit Titles at RHS Botanical Art Shows
      • RHS Portfolio Photography (Botanical / Horticultural)
    • Hunt International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration
    • UK >
      • Permanent Collections (UK)
      • Botanical Art Exhibitions at Major UK Galleries & Museums >
        • ARCHIVE: Major Gallery Exhibitions
        • ARCHIVE: Shirley Sherwood Gallery Exhibitions
      • Botanical Art Exhibitions in England and Wales >
        • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in the UK
        • ARCHIVE: Reviews of Annual Exhibitions by the Society of Botanical Artists
      • Botanical Art Exhibitions in Scotland >
        • ARCHIVE: Scotland - Botanical Art Exhibitions
    • North America >
      • Permanent Collections (USA)
      • ARCHIVE Past ASBA Exhibitions in the USA
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in the USA
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Canada
    • Europe >
      • Permanent Collections (Europe)
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Europe
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Exhibitions in Germany
      • ARCHIVE: ​Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Ireland
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Exhibitions in Russia
    • Australasia >
      • Margaret Flockton Award
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Australasia
    • Asia >
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Asia
    • Africa
    • ARCHIVE: World Wide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018
  • Education
    • Best Botanical Art Instruction Books >
      • Best Instruction Books by Botanical Art Societies >
        • The Art of Botanical Painting - review
        • The Botanical Palette - review
        • Botanical Sketchbook - review
      • Best Instruction Books about Botanical Illustration >
        • Botanical Illustration - Books by Bobbi Angell
        • Botanical Illustration (Oxley) - review
      • Best Instruction Books by top Artists / Teachers >
        • Books By Billy Showell
        • Books - the Eden Project
      • Best Botanical Drawing Instruction Books (Pencils) >
        • Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils - review
      • e-Booklets / digital guides
      • NEW Books about Botanical Art & Illustration (2020)
      • NEW Books about Botanical Art & Illustration (2019)
      • NEW Books about Botanical Art & Illustration (2018)
    • Tips and Techniques >
      • Tips from RHS Gold Medal Winners
      • Preparation and set-up
      • Botanical Sketching and Sketchbooks
      • Design and composition
      • Colour
      • Pen and Ink
      • How to draw and paint trees and leaves
    • Botanical Art Video Tips >
      • Video Tips: Watercolour Painting
      • Video Tips Coloured Pencils
      • Video Tips: Pencil drawing
      • Video Tips: Painting Flowers
      • Video Tips: Painting Leaves & Trees
    • Online Botanical Art Instruction >
      • CHECKLIST: FAQS about Online Learning
      • ONLINE TIMELINE
    • International Directory: Botanical Art Teachers
    • International Directory of Botanical Art Courses >
      • UK: Botanical Art Courses
      • North America: Botanical Art Courses
      • Europe: Botanical Art Courses & Holidays
      • Australasia: Botanical Art Courses
    • Diplomas and Certificates >
      • SBA Diploma Assignments
    • Distance Learning Courses
    • Talks, Lectures & Tours
    • Botanical Education on Facebook
    • Fellowships, Scholarships, Bursaries and Residencies
  • Materials
    • Paper
    • Vellum
  • Groups
    • National & Regional Botanical Art Societies
    • Florilegium Societies & Other Groups
    • Botanical Art Groups on Facebook
  • Botany
    • Why botany matters to artists
    • Botany Books for artists >
      • Botany for the Artist (Simblet)
      • The Art of Plant Evolution
      • The Concise British Flora in Colour (1965)
    • Scientific botanical illustration
    • Plant Forms and Anatomy
    • Plant Evolution and Taxonomy
    • Plant Names and Botanical Latin
    • Botanical Dictionaries
    • How to Identify Plants
    • Recording a Plant / Sketchbooks >
      • Plant Pressing for your own Herbarium
    • Botanic Gardens & Herbaria >
      • Global and National Networks
      • Herbaria, Seed Banks and Fungaria
      • Botanic Gardens in the UK >
        • Old Botanic & Physic Gardens in London
      • Botanic Gardens in Ireland
      • Botanic Gardens in Europe
      • Botanic Gardens in the USA
      • Botanic Gardens in Canada
      • Botanic Gardens in Asia
      • Botanic Gardens in Australia
    • Blogs about Plants and Flowers
  • Contact
    • About Katherine Tyrrell
    • About Reviews
    • Privacy Policy

Botanical
​and herbal illustrations online

This page provides links to places online
​where you can see images of botanical art produced over the centuries.  
It's impossible to get oneself physically to all the places where botanical art is archived - although some do try!
​
​However digitisation of botanical images and their storage in online archives enables many students and fans of botanical art to access many more examples of the different ways plants have been portrayed over the centuries
Some of the databases listed below belong to organisations specifically concerned with Botanical Art.  Others archive images in systematic ways. 
​

​See also the links in the pages devoted to Herbals and Florilegia

Image Databases maintained by Botanical Art Specialists
​

Botanicus 
a freely accessible portal to historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library. It includes 1,964 titles (books/journals) in 7,176 volumes

The BioDiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Image Library - on Flickr (Albums)
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.”
Catalogue of the Botanical Art Collection at the Hunt Institute
 the searchable database includes includes text records c. 30,000 original works - paintings (mostly watercolors), drawings and original prints - dating from the Renaissance onward. It's mainly organised by the artists' surnames but also includes a comprehensive taxonomic index.  The image records includes size and media and support used.
Plantillustrations
One man's effort to ensure that botanical images no longer covered by copyright are accessible within the public domain. The database can be found at plantillustrations.org / plantgenera.org / botanicalillustrations.org. Choose the device mode for viewing at the top.

Famous botanical art publications - on Wikipedia
​

  • List of florilegia and botanical codices

Wikimedia Commons
​

All the links below relate to categories of botanical art and illustration which can be found online:
  • on Wikimedia Commons
  • or via the Flickr albums of the Biodiversity Heritage Library
​

Famous botanical art publications (images)
​

  • ​Category: Herbal
  • This category has the following subcategories[+] De materia medica‎ (2 C, 17 F)[] Vienna Dioscurides‎ (1 P, 48 F)[+] Herbal manuscripts‎ (3 C, 3 F)[] Medicina antiqua (Cod. Vind. 93)‎ (12 F)[] Naples Dioscurides‎ (3 F)
  • Category: De historia stirpium commentarii insignes by Leonart Fuchs et al
  • Category: Hortus Eystettensis by Basilus Besler
  • Category: Hooker's Icones Plantarum
  • Category: Curtis's Botanical Magazine
    The category is for volumes from The Botanical Magazine (Volume 1 - 14, 1787-1800), which continues as Curtis's Botanical Magazine (Volume 15 and later, 1801 to the present day).
  • Category: Botanical illustrations from Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary ​
  • Category: Japanese Herbal 17th Century
Picture
Apples and melons by Basilius Besler in Hortus Eystettensis

Botanical Illustrations
​

  • Category: Botanical illustrations
  • Category: Botanical Illustrations by Taxon - including 338 different taxon in total
  • Category:Botanical illustrations in Kloster Michelsberg / Bamberg 
    These illustrations are painted at the ceiling of Kloster Michelsberg in Bamberg

Botanical illustrators 
​

  • Category: Botanical illustrators
  • Category: Botanical illustrations by illustrator

Botanists
​

  • ​Category: Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, FRS (30 June 1817 - 10 December 1911) was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend.
Late white tulip, Golden garlic, Mountain garlic by Basilius Besler
Hortus Eystettensis | Plate: 79 Late white tulip, Golden garlic, Mountain garlic | 1613 By Basilius Besler (1561-1629) via Wikimedia Commons

Flora associated with geographical areas

UK - LONDON
  • Category: Flora Londinensis, or, Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London​
  • Flora Londinensis - Biodiversity Heritage Library Flickr Album) - lFlora Londinensis, or, Plates and descriptions of such plants as grow wild in the environs of London : with their places of growth, and times of flowering, their several names according to Linnæus and other authors : with a particular description of each plant in Latin and English : to which are added, their several uses in medicine, agriculture, rural œconomy and other arts ByCurtis, William, 1746-1799 

    Darton, William, 1755-1819 
    Edwards, Sydenham, 1768-1819 
    Kilburn, William, 1745-1818 
    Sansom, Francis, acti-e 17 
    Sowerby, James, 1757-1822 
    White, Benjamin, acti-e 17 
    White, Benjamin, 1879-

Picture
Flora Londinensis - Leontodon Taraxacum Dandelion
AUSTRALIA

  • Category: Forest Flora of New South Wales - illustrations by Lilian Margaret Flockton (1861-1953) and Ethel Anna King (1879-1939)
  • Category: Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales 

See also Flowering Plants and Ferns of New South Wales Plates at the University of Sydney
Picture
Eucalyptus Robusta by Edward Minchen (1862-1913)

INDIA
  • Flora Indica - a Kew website funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation contains Roxburgh's 3 volume text-only Flora Indica published posthumously in 1832, PLUS the illustrations he commissioned of most of the plants he described. 
JAPAN
  • Icones of Japanese algae v.4 - Icones of Japanese algae v.4
    Tokyo, Kazamashobo [1907-1942], Biodiversity Heritage Library Flickr Album
Picture
Icones of Japanese algae.. Tokyo,Kazamashobo[1907-1942]. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1250286

Plants
​

  • Category: Botanical illustrations by taxon
  • Category:Vilmorin-Andrieux, Les plantes potagres 1904 This category is intended to include all images from Vilmorin-Andrieux & Cie, 1904. 

Other Online Botanical Art History Sites
​

  • Painting by Numbers - The works of Ferdinand Bauer
  • Botanical Illustration - maintained by an art teacher in the USA
  • Antiquariaat Junk - the website of a Dutch bookseller of fine Antiquarian Natural History Books, including handcoloured books on Flowers, Herbals, and Botanical Classics - many of which have been partially digitized
Bauer initially used the Feldsberg colour chart, with at least 273 colours. By the time he got to Australia in 1801 to draw the flora and fauna on the eastern side of the continent, he had polished the colour-coding system. It could be used in the field so effectively that the drawings he ‘finished’ more than 10 years later are still the best-ever drawn of Australian plants. This colour code extended to a palette range of up to 1000 colours.
Colour Code | Painting by Numbers website

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​
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 Scientific Botanical Illustration
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  • Home
    • Site Index
  • NEWS
    • NEWS blog subscription
  • HISTORY
    • What is Botanical Art?
    • What is Botanical Illustration?
    • Botanical Art History Books >
      • The Art of Botanical Illustration (Blunt)
      • Book Review: Treasures of Botanical Art
    • Herbals
    • Florilegia and Flora
    • Patrons of Botanical Art >
      • About Leonhart Fuchs
      • About Basilius Besler
    • Past Masters - Botanical Art and Illustration >
      • About Maria Sibylla Merian
      • About Elizabeth Blackwell
      • About Georg Dionysius Ehret
      • About Franz Bauer
      • About Sydney Parkinson
      • About Pierre-Joseph Redouté
      • About Marianne North
    • Famous Asian Botanical Artists (600-1900)
    • 20th & 21st Century Botanical Artists >
      • About Arthur Harry Church
      • About Margaret Mee
      • About Mary Grierson
      • About Raymond Booth
      • About Rory McEwen
      • About Pandora Sellars
    • Botanical Photographers
    • Botanical and Herbal Art Online
  • ARTISTS
    • Botanical Artists in the UK
    • Botanical Artists in North America
    • Botanical Artists in Europe
    • Botanical Artists in Australia and New Zealand
    • Botanical Artists in Asia
    • Botanical Artists in Africa
    • Botanical Artists in Latin America
    • Botanical Printmakers, Photographers, Sculptors et al
    • The Jill Smythies Award
    • Botanical Artists on Facebook
    • Botanical Art Blogs
  • Exhibitions
    • Calls for Entries - OPEN exhibitions
    • Online Exhibitions >
      • ARCHIVE: Online Botanical Art Exhibitions
    • RHS Botanical Art & Photography Shows >
      • ARCHIVE RHS Botanical Art Shows 2007-2021
      • Exhibit Titles at RHS Botanical Art Shows
      • RHS Portfolio Photography (Botanical / Horticultural)
    • Hunt International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration
    • UK >
      • Permanent Collections (UK)
      • Botanical Art Exhibitions at Major UK Galleries & Museums >
        • ARCHIVE: Major Gallery Exhibitions
        • ARCHIVE: Shirley Sherwood Gallery Exhibitions
      • Botanical Art Exhibitions in England and Wales >
        • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in the UK
        • ARCHIVE: Reviews of Annual Exhibitions by the Society of Botanical Artists
      • Botanical Art Exhibitions in Scotland >
        • ARCHIVE: Scotland - Botanical Art Exhibitions
    • North America >
      • Permanent Collections (USA)
      • ARCHIVE Past ASBA Exhibitions in the USA
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in the USA
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Canada
    • Europe >
      • Permanent Collections (Europe)
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Europe
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Exhibitions in Germany
      • ARCHIVE: ​Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Ireland
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Exhibitions in Russia
    • Australasia >
      • Margaret Flockton Award
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Australasia
    • Asia >
      • ARCHIVE: Past Botanical Art Exhibitions in Asia
    • Africa
    • ARCHIVE: World Wide Exhibition of Botanical Art 2018
  • Education
    • Best Botanical Art Instruction Books >
      • Best Instruction Books by Botanical Art Societies >
        • The Art of Botanical Painting - review
        • The Botanical Palette - review
        • Botanical Sketchbook - review
      • Best Instruction Books about Botanical Illustration >
        • Botanical Illustration - Books by Bobbi Angell
        • Botanical Illustration (Oxley) - review
      • Best Instruction Books by top Artists / Teachers >
        • Books By Billy Showell
        • Books - the Eden Project
      • Best Botanical Drawing Instruction Books (Pencils) >
        • Botanical Painting with Coloured Pencils - review
      • e-Booklets / digital guides
      • NEW Books about Botanical Art & Illustration (2020)
      • NEW Books about Botanical Art & Illustration (2019)
      • NEW Books about Botanical Art & Illustration (2018)
    • Tips and Techniques >
      • Tips from RHS Gold Medal Winners
      • Preparation and set-up
      • Botanical Sketching and Sketchbooks
      • Design and composition
      • Colour
      • Pen and Ink
      • How to draw and paint trees and leaves
    • Botanical Art Video Tips >
      • Video Tips: Watercolour Painting
      • Video Tips Coloured Pencils
      • Video Tips: Pencil drawing
      • Video Tips: Painting Flowers
      • Video Tips: Painting Leaves & Trees
    • Online Botanical Art Instruction >
      • CHECKLIST: FAQS about Online Learning
      • ONLINE TIMELINE
    • International Directory: Botanical Art Teachers
    • International Directory of Botanical Art Courses >
      • UK: Botanical Art Courses
      • North America: Botanical Art Courses
      • Europe: Botanical Art Courses & Holidays
      • Australasia: Botanical Art Courses
    • Diplomas and Certificates >
      • SBA Diploma Assignments
    • Distance Learning Courses
    • Talks, Lectures & Tours
    • Botanical Education on Facebook
    • Fellowships, Scholarships, Bursaries and Residencies
  • Materials
    • Paper
    • Vellum
  • Groups
    • National & Regional Botanical Art Societies
    • Florilegium Societies & Other Groups
    • Botanical Art Groups on Facebook
  • Botany
    • Why botany matters to artists
    • Botany Books for artists >
      • Botany for the Artist (Simblet)
      • The Art of Plant Evolution
      • The Concise British Flora in Colour (1965)
    • Scientific botanical illustration
    • Plant Forms and Anatomy
    • Plant Evolution and Taxonomy
    • Plant Names and Botanical Latin
    • Botanical Dictionaries
    • How to Identify Plants
    • Recording a Plant / Sketchbooks >
      • Plant Pressing for your own Herbarium
    • Botanic Gardens & Herbaria >
      • Global and National Networks
      • Herbaria, Seed Banks and Fungaria
      • Botanic Gardens in the UK >
        • Old Botanic & Physic Gardens in London
      • Botanic Gardens in Ireland
      • Botanic Gardens in Europe
      • Botanic Gardens in the USA
      • Botanic Gardens in Canada
      • Botanic Gardens in Asia
      • Botanic Gardens in Australia
    • Blogs about Plants and Flowers
  • Contact
    • About Katherine Tyrrell
    • About Reviews
    • Privacy Policy