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side by side on a wall, say half-a-dozen woodcuts from Fuchs and from
Brunfels, is to make the different qualities of the illustrators of these
two works far clearer than is possible by any other means. The making
of photographs from material already in the Library should not involve
very great expense.
2. Photos of Original Work. There should gradually be formed as complete as possible a record of the most important hand-painted florilegia
and collections of original flower paintings scattered in various museums
and libraries throughout the world. This is something that has never
been attempted for botanical drawings and would, in my opinion, add
great prestige to the Hunt Botanical Library, would be of enormous value
to A and B, and of considerable interest to C and D.
It is hardly necessary for me to mention the kind of work that I
have in mind, but the following are one or two obvious examples: the
hundred or more volumes of vélines at the Muséum of the Jardin des
Plantes, Paris; the Walther florilegium at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London; the volume of Rabel drawings in the Bibliothèque Nationale,
Paris; the collections of Ehret drawings at Kew and in the Victoria and
Albert Museums; the Rinio herbal, Venice, etc.
Various problems arise. First, what form should these records
take? I would suggest that a file of black-and-white photographs, on
6" x 4" data-cards, was of the first importance. Consider the case
of A or B who wishes to study, say, the work of Ehret. What is
available to him at present? In the Hunt Botanical Library six original
watercolour drawings, a few loose prints, probably the illustrations in
three or four printed works (Plantae Selectae, etc). If to these could
be added photographs of the original paintings at Kew and at the Victoria
and Albert Museum, etc., and of those in private collections (Major the
Hon. Henry Broughton, Dr. Joan Evans, Lady Dorothy Randolph, etc.), he
would be able to form a real impression of the full range of Ehret's
genius. There, is at present, nowhere in the world where such a study
can be made, and I would like to see the Hunt Botanical Library become
a Mecca for the serious student of Botanical Illustration.
Clearly this is also a long-term project, but I feel that a beginning