
An Oak Spring Flora
Flower Illustration from the Fifteenth Century to the Present Time: A Selection of the Rare books, Manuscripts, and Works of Art in the Collection of Rachel Lambert Mellon
Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi(Author)
Yale University Press
Published on 29. May 1997
Book
Hardback
504 pages
978-0-300-07139-9 (ISBN)
Description
This is the latest volume in a major series that describes selections of the rare books, manuscripts, and other works of art held at Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection formed by Rachel Lambert Mellon. The 111 items chosen for this volume on floral illustration since the later Middle Ages include Books of Hours, still-life and vanitas paintings, botanical prints, and books of instruction of every kind, from planting a garden to making flowers using colored papers or wax.
Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi groups the works into chapters on such topics as florilegia, women artists, tulipomania, Dutch and Flemish painting, and exotic flowers from distant lands, providing an introduction to each chapter that gives the contextual background necessary for a real understanding and appreciation of floral illustration past and present. The sheer beauty as well as extraordinary skills encountered, for example, in manuscript florilegia by Jacob Marrel and Maria Sibylla Merian, in hand-colored books by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and G.B. Ferrari, and in flower studies painted by John Constable, Margaret Mee, and others, are testament to the high status accorded floral illustration over the centuries.
This handsome, richly illustrated volume will attract all those with an interest in rare books and the history of art as well as horticulturalists, botanists, and garden historians.
Distributed for the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA
Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi groups the works into chapters on such topics as florilegia, women artists, tulipomania, Dutch and Flemish painting, and exotic flowers from distant lands, providing an introduction to each chapter that gives the contextual background necessary for a real understanding and appreciation of floral illustration past and present. The sheer beauty as well as extraordinary skills encountered, for example, in manuscript florilegia by Jacob Marrel and Maria Sibylla Merian, in hand-colored books by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and G.B. Ferrari, and in flower studies painted by John Constable, Margaret Mee, and others, are testament to the high status accorded floral illustration over the centuries.
This handsome, richly illustrated volume will attract all those with an interest in rare books and the history of art as well as horticulturalists, botanists, and garden historians.
Distributed for the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
45 b-w + 147 color illus.
Dimensions
Height: 286 mm
Width: 244 mm
Weight
2540 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-07139-9 (9780300071399)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi is a professor of art history at the University of Siena.