The joy of a botanical art bibliography

Great Flower Books 1700-1900

My final Christmas present turned up today - Great Flower Books 1700-1900 came complete with its customs declaration as it came from the USA.

It's a comprehensive Bibliographical Record of two Centuries of finely-illustrated Flower Books by Sacheverell Sitwell & Wilfrid Blunt. It's the sort of book which will keep me occupied with more research of botanical art for YEARS!  I'm guessing it's only other serious researchers who will appreciate why it gives me so much pleasure!

'Great Flowers Books 1700-1900' A Bibliographical Record of Two Centuries of Finely-Illustrated Flower Books by Sacheverell Sitwell and Wilfrid Blunt

​I didn't know until just recently that there are two versions of the book.

The first edition was published by Collins in London in 1956.

• The trade edition was composed of 1750 unnumbered copies printed on Gelderland white cartridge paper and bound by Mansells of London;
• it was published simultaneously with a numbered limited edition of 295 specially-bound copies printed on Amstel paper.​

The second edition was published by Atlantic Monthly Press in New York in 1990.
The bonus of the second one is that they very much improved the quality of the images included in the publication.  However almost all copies are located in the USA - hence the need to import.

'Great Flower Books' is very much a collaborative endeavour with essays by

• Handasyde Buchanan - a noted London book collector / bookseller, who wrote Nature into Art: Treasury of Great Natural History Books
• Sacheverell Sitwell - an English writer and art critic who wrote Fine Bird Books 1700-1900 with Handasyde Buchanan before this book
• Wilfrid Blunt - who wrote The Art of Botanical Illustration - which was published in 1950, just prior to this book - for which he was awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society

It occurred to me that he must have consulted a fair few - of not very many - of the books listed in this volume in order to write that book.

Front and back covers of the book

The Title Page - with authors and credits

The Title and Contents pages identify who did what in this collaborative endeavour with

• essays by Buchanan, Sitwell and Blunt
• a Bibliography compiled by William Stearn, Sabine Wilson (who she?) and Handasyde Buchanan
• which was then edited by Patrick M Synge - who was a plant hunter, an Editor of the Horticultural Journal and who was awarded the Victoria Medal of the Royal Horticultural Society

So all in all, a top notch set of contributors to this book! That doesn't too often these days!

​I'll be consulting and reading it with some reverence for those who put the book together.

The Contents Page

I have in fact got to the point with book-buying now where almost everything I buy is second hand -

In fact, the first thing I do when I get a 'new' book is to go straight to its bibliography to see what books it lists as resources - so as to see if I can find any new ones I've not read!

So the notion of buying a book, the bulk of which is essentially a bibliography does not strike me as too strange!

I've come across all sorts of small joys by studying the bibliographies in books and academic journals

So Many Sweet Flowers

One of them is one of my other Christmas presents. (as in persuade relatives to give me money then I sit down on Christmas Day and start placing orders!)

So Many Sweet Flowers is a book about the paintings created by Johann Walther for a seventeenth century florilegium of a dream garden - the Horti Itzteinensis (c.1654) created by his patron Count Johann of Nassau Idstein after the devastation of the 30 years war in Europe and his own exile to Strasbourg. His stay there presumably explains why he commissioned Johann Walther to create the paintings for the florilegium - as Walther is a native of Strasbourg.

'So Many Sweet Flowers' Paintings by Johann Walther 1654

It's a delightful book - with all the paintings arranged in seasons with many in clusters. as if growing in a flower bed.  Even better it can be had for not very much at all.  I very much like the style of his painting and the quality of his work is very fine. I'm now planning an expedition to go and see the work in person!

On the left - Crocus, Green Hellebore, Christmas Rose, Pheasant's Eye Hepatica

You can read more about books about botanical art history on various pages in the History section of my website - but particularly in The Best Books about Botanical Art History, Artists & Illustrators. These two will be making an appearance on those pages in the near future.