The Gardens Trust presents a series of three talks on botanists and botanical art across three centuries, exploring people and illustrations that have defined, recorded and celebrated the world of plants in all their distinctiveness and intricacy. We start the series with exciting new research on previously unremarked botanical images on the paneling of a fine Jacobean house in Hampshire. In the second lecture we will examine the extraordinary set of almost a thousand paper collages of exotic plants produced by an 18th century woman of advanced years, before finishing with tales of a Victorian lady traveler who sought out rare plants in their native lands, not to collect – but to paint. Tickets for the three part series may be purchased through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/botanists-and-botanical-art-tickets-834657221217 Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days (and again a few hours) prior to the start of the first talk (If you do not receive this link please contact us), and a link to the recorded session will be sent shortly after each session and will be available for 1 week.
On May 28, we will explore the work of Mary Delany (1700 – 1788) and her ‘Paper Mosaicks’ with Twigs Way. Scandal, politics, botany, and art: this talk will explore the life of the ‘grotto nymph’ and creator of botanic paper collages, Mary Delany. Acclaimed by Sir Joseph Banks, personal friend of Queen Charlotte, and fellow ‘explorer’ of botanical wonders with the Duchess of Portland, Mary Delany embarked, aged 72, on a fabulous Flora of paper portrayals of exotic plants. This will be a heavily illustrated talk drawing on Mary Delany’s own words.
Dr Twigs Way is a researcher, writer and speaker in garden history, fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds. Her research reflects that endless curiosity and her books on plants and gardens explore themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, art and literature. Currently (2024) delivering a series of talks for the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens on the overlap between garden design and textile fashion through the ages.
Image: Passiflora laurifolia,Tulipa sylvestris and Rhododendron ponticum by Mary Delany © The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
