THE GOLDEN AGE OF BOTANICAL ART (1750-1850)
Botanical and Horticultural Magazines and Periodicals
The 19th century saw a wave of new magazines and periodicals devoted to horticulture and botany. This was the golden age of botanical illustration, and these many publications, benefiting from new advances in printing, overflowed with colored illustrations of plants. The wide distribution of these publications resulted in increased public exposure to botanical art.
The most notable magazine was Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (1787); among the numerous others were The Botanical Register (1815), The Botanical Cabinet (1817), The Gardener’s Magazine (1826), Horticultural Register (1831), and Floricultural Cabinet (1833). These were British publications, but there were also several European periodicals, and one of the finest was L’Illustration Horticole.
Exhibit Item 2
Eschscholzia californica
Californian poppy
Illustrator: William J. Hooker
Hand-colored copper plate engraving
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine
Vol. III of the New Series,
or Vol. LVI of the Whole Work, 1829
Plate 2887
From the Collection of the
University of Arizona Herbarium
Image courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden www.botanicus.org
