Album of original botanical watercolours

Description:

Album containing 132 original watercolours of British wildflowers, signed and dated 'Emily Augusta Severn. 1854.' The drawings comprise studies of a wide range of plants, including orchids, irises, grasses, nettles, primulas, violets, thistles and dandelions. Each is carefully annotated with its common and scientific name and the specimens are systematically arranged according to the Linnaean system of classification, in Classes numbered 2-19. The watercolours are individually 'tipped in' to hand-cut apertures in the album leaves, one drawing remaining only partly prepared for insertion. The drawing of a snowdrop is not present. A small pressed botanical specimen is loosely inserted.

The artist is almost certainly Emily Augusta Severn (1815-1906) of Penybont Hall, Radnorshire. She was the daughter of John Cheesement Severn and Mary Ann Price, whose family owned the Penybont estate, and was living at Penybont Hall at the time this album was produced. She remained unmarried and later succeeded her brother, John Percy Severn, to the estate.

The album is considerably more than a collection of decorative flower paintings. Its organisation according to the Linnaean classes, together with the careful use of both scientific and vernacular plant names, demonstrates a systematic study of botany. Botanical drawing formed an important element of natural-history education for educated nineteenth-century women, for whom formal participation in scientific institutions remained restricted. Such albums combined observation, classification and artistic accomplishment and provided one of the principal means by which women could engage seriously with botanical study.

Condition

4to (375x365mm), half calf, scrap album, gilt decorated spine (worn with short tear to foot), wear to corners. 132 watercolours (167x144mm) in very fresh condition.