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Highgrove: The florilegium returns
The florilegium is back with this exquisite record of Highgrove. By Peter Parker
Books or portfolios of botanical paintings, technically known as florilegia, are often merely decorative, but have also recorded particular collections of plants.
Banks' Florilegium displayed the rich array of new plants brought back from Captain Cook's voyage round the world, while the Hortus Eystettensis (1613) catalogued the rare specimens to be found in the spectacular gardens created in Bavaria by Prince-Bishop Johann Konrad von Gemmingen of Eichstätt.
Most of the artists who provided the 374 paintings for the latter remain unknown, but in 1791, Francis I of Austria commissioned one man, Matthias Schmutzer, to paint every plant in the royal garden in Vienna for a Florilegium Imperiale that took 30 years to complete.
Similarly combining craftsmanship and royal patronage, the Highgrove Florilegium (which has taken a mere seven years to produce) records the plants growing at the Prince of Wales' home in Gloucestershire.
The idea for the book emerged from the botanical illustration course run by Anne-Marie Evans at the English Gardening School. Florilegia are back in vogue, and comparable projects are under way at both the Chelsea Physic Garden and Hampton Court Palace, both undertaken by graduates of Evans's course.
As Evans notes: "Whereas the florilegia of the 17th century were created to portray the beauty and novelty of those plants brought back from the colonies, the modern florilegium may be seen as a conservation tool, instrumental in recording for posterity collections of plants within a chosen garden."
A list of plants selected by the Prince's gardener, David Howard, was circulated among botanical artists from all over the world, who were invited to pick subjects and submit watercolour paintings. These were then subjected to a rigorous selection process, and only 30 per cent of them ended up in the book.
The plants are arranged by family in the two huge, beautifully designed and hand-bound volumes of the florilegium. Opposite each image, the botanical and common names of the plant are recorded, as well as a descriptive text supplied by the Natural History Museum.
Given that 64 artists were involved, it is unsurprising that the paintings vary considerably in style and presentation. Sometimes entire plants are shown, such as Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens' with its liquorice-strap leaves, small violet flowers and intricate root system. Elsewhere only the most significant feature is depicted: three brightly hued leaves from a liquidambar tumbling across the page as if blown by the wind.
As anyone who has browsed gardening catalogues will know, the colours and textures of plants are difficult to reproduce, but accuracy is essential for a botanical project such as this, and each image went though many proofing stages until it exactly matched the original.
The 61 plates in the first volume of the Highgrove Florilegium depict plants that, in spite of their royal provenance, are for the most part reassuringly familiar, even humble. Given that the Prince is a passionate conservationist, who was encouraged by Miriam Rothschild to plant a wild-flower meadow, it is appropriate that one of the most beautiful illustrations is of the common buttercup, Ranunculus acris.
Trees, grasses, fruit and vegetables are also represented: from wellingtonia and Stipa gigantea to apples and pears, beetroot, and, of course, a Welsh leek.
Furthermore, these "plant portraits" are for the most part of the warts-and-all school, displaying occasional pest damage, such as the all-too-familiar hole in the leaf of the rhubarb chard (Beta vulgaris), and the occasional untidy dead leaf, such as the one belonging to Geranium phaeum 'Album', a plant dismissed by Christopher Lloyd as "undeserving of garden space", but which looks very desirable here.
The appropriately named Hosta 'Royal Standard', however, is enviably free of slug damage - which is perhaps as it should be, since Highgrove holds a National Collection of hostas.
At £10,950, the Highgrove Florilegium is not exactly a snip, but all royalties go to The Prince's Charities Foundation, and most copies will end up in institutions where many people will be able to look at them. Florilegia have always been expensive because they cost a great deal to produce.
Compared with the Hortus Eystettensis, however, which cost 500 florins at a time when 2,500 florins could buy you a large house in the most fashionable district of Nuremberg, the Highgrove Florilegium might almost be described as a bargain.
- The Highgrove Florilegium is limited to 175 numbered copies; Telegraph readers may apply for the two volumes in a leather half-binding at £10,950 (Vol 1 is available now; Vol 2 in the summer of 2009).
- Contact Addison Publications (020 7602 1848; www.addisonpublications.com), mentioning Telegraph Gardening.