collage;
album
- Museum number
- 1897,0505.654
- Description
-
Passiflora Laurifolia (Gynandria Pentandria), formerly in an album (Vol.VII, 54); Bay Leaved. 1777
Collage of coloured papers, with bodycolour and watercolour, on black ink background
- Production date
- 1777
- Dimensions
-
Height: 352 millimetres
-
Width: 242 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See bibliographic references in curator's comment for PD 1897,0505.1. Composition made at Luton, plant donated by Lord Bute.
Exhibition label 1992:
'The common names of 'Passiflora laurifolia' today are vinegar pear, water lemon or Jamaican honeysuckle. It originated in the West Indies and was brought to this country in the late seventeenth century'.
The following entry appeared on the Explore section of the BM website until September 2015:
Collage with over 230 paper petals in the bloom
After the death of her second husband in 1768, Mary Delany lost her enthusiasm for the fashionable pastimes of shell decoration, silhouette portraits and needlework. At the age of 72 she began to imitate flowers in paper collage as an ‘employment and amusement... being deprived of that friend, whose partial approbation was my pride'. Her skill was such that the great eighteenth-century botanist Sir Joseph Banks declared that these collages were ‘the only imitations of nature that he had ever seen from which he could venture to describe botanically any plant without the least fear of committing an error'.
The common names of Passiflora laurifolia today are vinegar pear, water lemon and Jamaican honeysuckle. It originated in the West Indies and was brought to this country in the late seventeenth century. This specimen was given to Delany by John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-92), former Prime Minister and a keen horticulturalist, who grew exotic species in his home at Luton Park. She also received flowers from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, which Sir Joseph Banks supervised. George III and Queen Charlotte were regular visitors to the house they provided for her in 1785 near the Queen's Lodge at Windsor.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1986 Sep-Nov, NY, Pierpont Morgan Library, Mrs Delany's Flower Collages, no.80
1992 Sep-Dec. BM, Flower Collages of Mary Delany
1994 May-July, Cardiff, Nat Mus of Wales, 'Mary Delany' (no cat.)
1995 Nov-Dec, Dublin, NG of Ireland, Mary Delany (no cat.)
2000 May-Sep, BM P&D, 'A Noble Art', no.40(c)
2009/10 Sep-Jan, New Haven, YCBA, Mrs Delany and her Circle
2023-2024 27 Oct-28 Jan, York Art Gallery, National Programmes Drawing attention tour
2024 10 Feb-6 May, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, National Programmes Drawing attention tour
2024 18 May-24 Aug, Hartlepool Art Gallery, National Programmes Drawing attention tour
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1897,0505.654
