10 Botanical Paintings


Sauromatum guttatum (Himalayan Voodoo Lily), Lady Dalhousie Collection © RBG Kew


Livistona chinensis by Vishnuprasad, circa 1825, commissioned by Nathaniel Wallich © RBG Kew


FLORA INDICA A


t Kew, the Royal Botanic Garden, located in London, visitors can explore their latest


exhibition relating to the plants of India. Flora Indica is a collection of 52 previously lost botanical artworks seen for the first time here, which are part of Kew’s comprehensive collection. Wherever possible, the exhibition has attributed the works to specific artists to feature these creators as vital co- creators of both astonishing artwork and their contribution to the burgeoning colonial botanical knowledge. Te paintings were commissioned


by a diverse cross-section of East India Company


(EIC) judges, and


their wives, as well as by more itinerant British artists and intellectuals passing through India for pleasure and instruction. Tese ‘Company


Paintings’, officials,


ranging from botanists and surgeons, to members of the EIC civil service, diplomats, governors,


Tis new style of painting soon usually


defined by work created by Indian painters for Europeans or for the European market, were first produced in the Madras Presidency in South India. Te artists of this school modified their technique to cater to the British taste for academic realism, which required the incorporation of Western academic principles of art such as a close representation of visual reality, perspective, volume, and shading. Te artists also changed their medium and began to paint with watercolour


(instead of gouache)


and used pencil or sepia wash on European paper.


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disseminated to other parts of India, such as Calcutta, Murshidabad, Patna, Benares, Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, Punjab, and centres in Western India. Te botanical watercolours, the majority of which were created between 1790 and 1850, were used to document and study India’s rich plant diversity. Te paintings in this exhibition include common subjects


such as


poppies and cotton, plus a range of herbs and spices – many of these plants would go on to deliver great economic benefits for the British Empire. Te


paintings not only


record flora native to South and Southeast Asia but also plants introduced from other parts of the world through early contact with trade. Following their creation, these drawings were transported to London, where they remained in


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The artists who worked for the botanists had


their origins in the miniature tradition


private collections or in the EIC’s India Museum, which was situated in Leadenhall Street in the City of London. After the museum was disbanded in 1879, the botanical drawings and paintings were transferred to Kew Gardens for safe keeping. Until recently, Kew’s archive


collection of over 7,000 Indian illustrations had been largely uncatalogued and used by only a small number of taxonomists, inaccessible to the rest of the world. Since 2018, Dr Henry Noltie has been working to reassemble


this


archive – cataloguing the drawings and identifying the plants shown and the artists who made them, the results of which can be seen in this exhibition. Te government botanists


employed by the EIC were tasked with investigating natural and agricultural resources on the subcontinent that the East India Company might be able to exploit commercially. From 1840, this took the form of running a massive series of growth trials of American long- staple cotton based around Coimbatore to exploit the industrialisation of manufacture for


cotton textiles. Surgeons


and physicians were also interested in local fauna, searching for pharmaceutical plants unknown in the West but used in ayurvedic medicine and requesting drawings for knowledge and identification. Tese ‘Company School’ style


paintings of the natural world also became popular with Europeans,


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Papaver bracteatum (poppy), by an unknown Saharunpur artist, post 1840 © RBG Kew


who wished to collect them for their beauty, as well as their scientific record. Te artists who worked for the


colonial botanists had their origins in schools of painters taught in the Mughal miniature tradition and were primarily interested in pattern and colour. Tis tradition was in decline by the end of the 18th century, but the artists adapted to the demands of the new patrons, who wanted records of plants


in a Western style of scientific illustration. Te result is an Asian Art Newspaper


interesting fusion of styles – a Western style mixed with the traditions of the Mughal and Rajput courts. Te painters who studied the Mughal tradition were commissioned to create scientifically accurate paintings, used to working in the miniature tradition, these botanical records show great detail in their portrayal of not only the whole flowering plant, but its roots, seeds, petals, stamens, and other peculiarities of the plant. Tis new hybrid style of painting produced


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