Gardens in Perpetual Bloom: Botanical Illustration in Europe and America 1600-1850

Originally developed as an aid to professional herbalists, botanical illustration quickly blossomed into an art form in its own right. The first flower books were intended as medicinal guides, or else illustrated volumes that catalogued the elaborate and extensive gardens of the well-to-do. But when Carl Linnaeus first classified the plant kingdom in 1735, the botanical book quickly took on a more scientific cast. By the nineteenth century, the flourishing of botanical publications reflecte...