album;
painting
- Museum number
- 1999,0203,0.10
- Description
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Watercolour painting on paper of Coffea bengalensis Roxb., a wild form of the coffee plant. The painting details the flowering stem of the bush, with multiple leaves and white flowers shown. Ripening coffee beans are also show. Areas of the painting have been burnished to give a three-dimensional quality to the painting. The painting is from an album of 58 botanical paintings.
- Production date
- 19thC
- Dimensions
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Height: 51.30 centimetres
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Width: 34.30 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This painting is from an album of fifty-eight watercolour paintings of botanical subjects. The paintings, on watermarked paper, were painted by two artists, the first producing the majority of the images (1999,0203,0.1-50) and the second (1999,0203,0.51-57) producing the less detailed studies.
It is likely that some of these paintings are stylistically linked to images created for William Roxburgh during his time as Superintendant of the Calcutta Botanical Garden (1793-1813). Many of the drawings and paintings created for Roxburgh were later copied for colleagues within the East India Company, such as Lord Wellesley, Dr John Fleming and James Hare, or given by Roxburgh to fellow botanists. Other notable collections of botanical paintings and drawing can be found at the British Library (the Wellesley Collection), the Natural History Museum (the John Fleming Collection) and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (the Roxburgh Drawings).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1999
- Acquisition notes
- According to a label inside the cover: 'Purchased from Harold Hill of Newcastle Autumn 1945 / Restored for Henry Sotheran of Sackville Street W.1 Spring 1978'
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1999,0203,0.10
