Mrs. Jane Loudon

Jane Wells Webb Loudon (1807-1858) was an accomplished English author and gardener. Orphaned and penniless at age 17, Jane decided to try to become a writer to support herself. She published a book entitled Prose and Verse in 1826 and then achieved success the next year with an annonymously published novel when she was still only 20. The work, The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century, was the first in what became a popular genre of books about mummies. It was also an early example of science fiction, in which she wrote of the future with imagined changes in society and technology, some of which—like an early form of the internet, air-conditioning and espresso machines—seem prophetic today.

One of Jane’s inventions was a steam-powered digging machine, something which caught the eye of John Claudius Loudon, a well-respected landscape designer, botanist, gardener, author and publisher of Gardener’s Magazine. He asked a friend to invite the author to lunch and was greatly surprised when this turned out to be a woman. The surprise soon turned into love and just seven months later, in 1831, Jane and John married.

Through her marriage, Jane became an enthusiastic gardener and worked closely with her husband in his research and writing, including assisting in editing John's Encyclopedia of Gardening. Jane saw that there was a need for gardening manuals aimed at the growning market of middle-class women, and began a series of guides, including Gardening for Ladies and The Ladies' Companion to the Flower-Garden.

Probably the most famous of her output were the Ladies' Flower Garden books, which were both decorative and educational. Jane had taught herself to draw and these books were illustrated with her designs, beautifully rendered in hand-colored lithographs. These prints are well-known in today's market, but the story of their remarkable creator is undeservedly less well known.

Maria Sibylla Merian

As the step-granddaughter of Johann Theodor de Bry and the daughter of the well-known engraver Matthaus Merian the elder, and then step-daughter of botanical artist Jacob Marrel, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was well suited to become one of the most notable natural history print-makers of either sex. Known not only as an accomplished artist, but also as a respected entomologist. Merian was the first to illustrate the full metamorphoses of many species of butterflies and moths, but her 1699-1701 scientific expedition to South America is one of the most extraordinary stories from the early days of scientific exploration.

From an early age, Maria collected and drew images of insects, taking the innovative approach of looking at the full lifecycle of her subjects. After marrying Johann Andreas Graff, one of Marrel’s apprentices, Maria achieved success as a flower painter and engraver, producing three books of flower prints between 1675 and 1680. Her interest in entomology continued and between 1679 and 1683, she produced Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung, [The Caterpillar’s wondrous metamorphosis and extraordinary nourishment from flowers], which were well received.

Then in 1685, Merian converted to communistic sect of Labadism and left her husband, Johann Graff, moving with her two daughters to the Labadist colony in Holland. This was located in the castle of the Governor of the Dutch Colony of Surinam (Guiana), whose cabinet of exotic butterflies sparked Merian’s imagination to the extent that in 1669, at the age of fifty-two, she set off, with her youngest daughter Dorothea, to study the insects and flora of Surinam.

After two years in the wilderness, recording her observations of plants and the transformations of the native insects, Merian returned to Europe where, in 1705, she produced her important masterpiece, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.

This magnificent work documented the insects of Surinam in their full life cycles, each shown with a native plant upon which it lived. The plates blended entomological and botanical elements with an exquisite decorative appearance, providing for Europeans the first extensive visual record of the exotic colors and forms of the plant and insect life of South America, documenting many of the subjects for the first time.

In 1712, Merian began an expanded, Dutch edition of her earlier book on European insects, but this was not completed, for sadly, while in Surinam Maria had contracted a tropical illness, from which she never recovered. In 1715, she suffered a stroke and died in poverty two years later. However, her two daughters worked to complete this work, which was completed in 1717, appearing later in Latin and French editions, the last in 1730.

With all these wonderful volumes, Merian’s work, both as science and art, lives on. In 1991, Germany issued a 500 Deutschemark bill with her likeness on is, and in 2005 named its state-of-the-art research ship the RV Maria S. Merian in her honor.

 Original, antique prints from Merian's publications are rare, but they can still be acquired at reasonable prices. They are a tremendous legacy of this remarkable woman anturalist.

Elizabeth Blackwell, naturalist

Elizabeth Blackwell (1707-1758) of Scotland is not a well-known as the American pioneer doctor of the same name, but she is one of the most famous and impressive early eighteenth-century botanical illustrators. Born Elizabeth Blachrie and trained as an artist, she married her cousin Alexander Blackwell, who though enterprising and well educated, failed in both his Aberdeen medical practice and his London printing shop. Alexander’s excessive spending and fines from his failed business led him into debtor’s prison.

Needing to raise funds to get her husband out of prison, not to mention care for her family and home, Elizabeth came up with an ambitious plan, to create an herbal to document and illustrate the exotic plants of the Old and New World. With her artistic training, Elizabeth could draw the plants and her husband, with his medical background, could provide the proper names and descriptions for the herbal. Encouraged by Sir Hans Sloane and at the recommendation of Isaac Rand, the curator of the Chelsea Physick Garden, Elizabeth took up lodging nearby and drew the plants from the gardens, visiting her husband to get the needed textual information.

Elizabeth not only made the drawings, but she engraved the 500 copper plates and then hand-colored each individually. The resulting A Curious Herbal, published between 1737 and 1739 was successful enough to spring Alexander from prison. [The “curious” in the title is an archaic use of the word, meaning ‘accurate and precise’] Alas, Alexander became involved in more unsuccessful businesses and debts again grew for the Blackwell family. In 1742, hoping to find greener pastures, Alexander moved to Sweden where he was more successful, even being appointed as court physician to Frederick I of Sweden. Still, he managed to reach too far and ended up being convicted of conspiracy of trying to alter the line of Swedish succession and beheaded on July 29th, 1747. In an interesting side-note, he laid his head the wrong way on the chopping block and when corrected by the executioner, noted that he lacked the needed experience as this was his first beheading.

The published product of Elizabeth and Alexander’s labors, though, was an enduring success. It was acclaimed especially by physicians and apothecaries and received the approval of both the Royal College of Physicians and College of Surgeons. Such was the demand for the herbal that two decades after the first edition, botanist and pharmacist Dr. Christoph Jacob Trew reissued the work in a German edition. Prints from the original edition are not only rare and lovely but are testament to determination and skill of the remarkable, Elizabeth Blackwell.

Fanny Palmer

Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812-1876), usually called Fanny, was perhaps the greatest of the artists who worked for the American printmaker, Nathaniel Currier and then Currier & Ives. She produced over 200 prints, both as the original artist and the lithographer.

Born in England, Fanny was trained in art as a young student at Mary Linwood’s School for young ladies and she later opened a drawing school in Leicester. By 1841, Fanny had formed a lithography business with her husband Edmund Seymour Palmer (called Seymour), Fanny providing the art and lithography and Edmund doing the printing. The couple emigrated to New York City in 1843, where they continued their business as F.&S. Palmer, lithographers. They provided images for a number of works, like the two prints above.

Unfortunately, the business was not successful and in 1849 Fanny began to work for Nathaniel Currier. Currier, known for his keen artistic eye and business sense, soon had Fanny working regularly for his firm. For about two decades, Fanny produced drawings and created lithographic designs on stone for Currier and then Currier & Ives.

Fanny was particularly skilled at architectural drawings, but her landscapes and genre pictures were also excellent. Her early prints often depicted scenes on Long Island, where she lived, but Fanny also created images of places further afield, including locations she never herself visited, such as the American West.

Her work, both in terms of artistic renderings and lithographic skill, is considered to be unsurpassed by any other Currier & Ives artist and her prints remain some of the most popular from the firm.

Recently, Katie Wood Kirchhoff, Associate Curator at the Shelburne Museum, and Dr. Stephanie Delamaire, Associate Curator of Fine Arts at Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, held a very interesting discussion of Fanny Palmer's work. This is available on line, which you can see by clicking on this link.