Matilda Smith botanic garland organic cotton

Natural World range. 

Each image is digitally printed onto organic cotton sateen and cut into little flags. The edges are kept raw with a simple stay stitch.

Handmade in Australia

 

Total length 3 m/9.8 ft 
Images length: 112cm/3.7 ft

All images are prints of illustrations by Matilda Smith 1920* generously made available by the Biodiversity Heritage Library.**
The prints are from Vol. 146 of Curtis's Botanical Magazine 1920

From left to right
1.  Iris Hoogiana
2.  Podophullum emodi
3.  Nuphar Polysepala
4.  Venidium macrocephalum
5.  Rhododendron verniscosum
6.  Salvia brevilabra
7.  Acacia spectabilis

The images are in the public domain and are all sourced from the generous open access schemes from various wonderful museums.   This is an excellent initiative that opens up so many beautiful images to be seen and enjoyed again.  

*Matilda Smith 1854-1926 was a botanical artist who worked for Curtis's Botanical Magazine for over 40 years.  She became the first artist to depict New Zealand's flora in depth, the first offical artist of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the second woman to become an associate of the Linnaean Society.

**The Biodiversity Heritage Library improves research methodology by collaboratively making biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global diversity community.

Henrik Gronvold (1858-1940)
Published by Witherby & Co.

4. Lepidoptera 1805 
E Donovan and F. & C. Rivington 1804

5. Green Honey Eater
Henrik Gronvold (1858-1940)

6. Hatchet-leaved daviesa, Daviesa physodes.
Hand-coloured botanical illustration drawn and lithographed by Walter Hood Fitch for Sir William Jackson Hooker's "Curtis's Botanical Magazine," London, Reeve Brothers, 1846. Fitch was a tireless Scottish artist who drew over 2,700 lithographs for the "Botanical Magazine" starting from 1834.