"Crawling with Life" at the Fitzwilliam Museum

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has one of the most significant collections of flower paintings and botanical drawings and watercolours in the world.  Periodically there are exhibitions of botanical art which are well worth seeing.

The exhibition "Crawling with Life: Flower drawings from the Henry Rogers Broughton Bequest" continues at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for another month - finishing on 8th May.  It's RECOMMENDED VIEWING by me.

The emphasis is on flower drawings and paintings and the creatures and insects that live and can be found amongst flowers and plants - and those plants which trap insects for food and as a means of aiding pollination. ​

The flyer for the exhibition includes a painting of a "Blue iris (Germanica), caterpillar and a red-backed beetle" by Barbara Regina Dietzsch (1706-1783). Bodycolour and watercolour on prepared black ground within gold border, on vellum

The exhibition is a combination of works from the Henry Rogers Broughton Bequest,  the Museum’s wider collection of flower drawings and specimens from the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge

The images in this post are courtesy of the Museum who also supplied me with a copy of the labels for the exhibition as there is no catalogue. These are most informative about both artists and artwork. I was also allowed to take "gallery room shots" of the exhibition from a distance.

​Butterflies and other insects (1661) by Jan van Kessel (1626-79) - Oil on copper. Bequeathed by Daniel Mesman, 1834 No. 224

The dragonfly’s iridescent body and membranous wings have been captured with great skill, as have the polished surfaces and curved forms of the shells. Similar to its pair exhibited here, he covers his painting with flowers, including auriculas, gentian and forget-me-nots, and insects such as geometer moth, mayfly, magpie moth and its caterpillar, orange tip butterfly, clouded yellow butterfly, hummingbird hawkmoth, staphylinid beetle, cockchafer, large white butterfly and spider.

I went to see it last month with Cynthia Rice and we both very much enjoyed seeing original artwork by artists such as Maria Sibylla Merian, Georg Ehret and Jan van Huysem.  

It was interesting to view the different types of vellum in use by the 17th and 18th century artists. The background of Merian's paintings had a chalky white surface to them and they looked quite different to the original paintings by Merian that I've previously seen in the Royal Collection in the Queen's Gallery

Also to note how vibrant the colours is in Jan van Kessell's oil paintings on copper.

​All of these paintings by Van Kessel are on copper: its smooth surface allowed for a more fluid application of paint that aided the depiction of minute details. Less susceptible than wood to changes in the environment, works on copper are usually better preserved and retain their colour and luminosity. 

We were amused by seeing Ehret's painting of the Arum given we'd come straight from the glasshouses at the Cambridge Botanical garden where we'd been looking at their rather splendid Arum with its magnificent leaves and spadix and spathe. Only to find a painting by Ehret of precisely the same plant in the exhibition! (Well not exactly the same plant - but you know what I mean!)

A view of the room in which the exhibition is being held - with paintings on vellum by Ehret on the left

Artists with work in the exhibition

Artists with work in the show are as follows. Embedded in their name is a link to their works in the collection - so if you;re the other side of the world you can see why it's worth paying a visit to the Fitzwilliam!

​The artists are:

• Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) - paintings on vellum
• Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-70) - four watercolour and body colour paintings on vellum - Sarracenia purpurea, 1764; Stapelia, 1765; Haemanthus, 1757; Sarracenia flava, 1766 and Arum 
• Jan van Huysum 1682-1749 - two paintings: Flowers in a vase with opium poppy, iris and roses, 1735 and Fruit and flower piece, 1735
• Wencelaus Hollar 1607-77 
  
• Jan van Kessel 1626-79 
• Jacob Marrel (1614-81) - the father in law of Merian
• Barbara Regina Dietzsch 1706-1783 
• Margaretha Barbara Dietzsch 1726-1795 
• Johann Christoph Dietzsch 1710-1769 
• Thomas Robins the Elder / Thomas Robins the Younger 
• Joseph Jakob von Plenck (1738-1807)
• James Sowerby (1756-1822) Fly orchid (Ophrys muscifera), c.1800

Fruit and flower piece (1735) by Jan van Huysem (1682-1749)

​One of the greatest exponents of Dutch flower painting, Jan van Huysum is famed for his lavish, colourful bouquets that were painted with minute attention to detail. He was highly secretive and did not like to share his fine-painting techniques with his fellow artists, for it was these skills that made him much coveted amongst collectors. 

Primula auricula with a clouded yellow butterfly (Colias crocus) by Barbara Regina Dietzsch (1706-1783) Bodycolour and watercolour on prepared black ground within gold border, on vellum. Bequeathed by Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Lord Fairhaven, 1973

The Dietzsch family of artists was based in Nuremberg, Germany, which after London was a thriving centre of botanical art in the 18th century. Barbara, Margaretha and Johann were three of nine children born to the painter Johann Israel (1681-1754), and altogether were employed at the Nuremberg Court. While their brother and father focused more on landscapes, Barbara and Margaretha achieved success through their botanical watercolours, many included birds and insects. The depiction of such subjects was then deemed most befitting for women, for it was thought to require a delicate hand.

This Varsity review by Exhibition: Crawling With Life by Ana Persinaru also provides an interesting perspective on the exhibition.

Bequests

The Anglo-American, Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Lord Fairhaven (1900-73) was recognised as one of the foremost collectors of flower paintings, drawings and watercolours in the world.

His gift, and later bequest, of over 100 oil paintings, around 900 works on paper, 38 albums and many boxes and miniatures during his lifetime and upon his death transformed the collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum 
​
Henry’s grandfather was the famous oil tycoon, Henry Huttleston Rogers who lived in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. In 1912, Henry moved to Britain with his parents and his brother, Huttleston (1896-1966). Subsequently the brothers developed close ties with Cambridgeshire and together acquired Anglesey Abbey in 1926. (now a National Trust property)

The paintings by Van Kessel displayed in the exhibition were part of the large bequest of Daniel Mesman, a wealthy silk weaver from London. He left some 300 paintings and drawings, mostly Dutch and Flemish, to the Museum upon his death in 1834.