Image from Description des plantes rares cultivées à Malmaison et à Navarre

In the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, illustrated botanical books are published in which, though also with a certain rigour and remarkable scientific accuracy, the interest seemed to be more aimed at the creation of images that were aesthetically pleasing, in which the artistic accomplishments reached the highest levels.

This was made possible on the one hand by increasingly refined printing techniques such as lithography, which made a high-level degree of precision in the engraving possible, as well as by the choice, quite frequently, to rely on illustrations done by hand.

Works presented:

A. Franciosi, Cento fiori colti nel loro mese

Aimé Bonpland, Description des plantes rares cultivées a Malmaison et a Navarre

  »  Cento fiori colti nel loro mese