About the Work

From tea and tobacco to cotton and coffee, the wealth of the British Empire was built on botany. The discovery of plants unknown to Europeans could prove profitable, therefore, the collection, documentation, and study of samples was a major preoccupation of the East India Company. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew were founded for this purpose, and to this day, a majority of the 100,000 objects in its botany collection date back to the days of the Empire. Only after 1829, with the invention of the Wardian case, could live plants be successfully transported to Britain. Therefore, watercolours such as these were commissioned from local Chinese artists to accompany seeds and dried specimens to Britain to aid with identification.

This collection of 87 botanical paintings comes from a nine-volume album of Chinese export watercolours. The earliest known owner of the album was Winifred Bois (1875–1966), a collector of Chinese art. It was later owned by Henry Roger Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven (1900–1973), who combined his twin passions of gardening and art by creating one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. The watercolours were later cut out of their albums and dispersed. We are proud to have reunited a majority of them to display at TEFAF.

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Provenance

Winifred Bois (1875–1966).
Probably sold by Bois to WT Spencer, London, between 1930 and 1966.
Purchased by Henry Roger Broughton, 2nd Baron Fairhaven (1900–1973); thence by descent until 2022.