SOUTH AFRICAN BOTANICAL ART (Collectors' Edition)

 By John Rourke, Dee Snijman, John Manning & Peter Goldblatt.

Collectors’ Edition: 216 pages, 116 colour plates, 8 colour photographs, half dark green morocco with grey cloth sides, decorated gilt on the upper cover and titled gilt on the spine, contained in a grey cloth-covered slipcase decorated with a plate-sunk illustration, a fine copy.

The Collectors’ Edition is limited to 100 copies signed by Marion Arnold. This is number 9.

Editor’s note. ‘Remarkable images of plants created by the most talented of botanical artists, are housed in store rooms of botanical institutes and museums. Yet the oil paintings, etchings and watercolours of ‘fine’ artist – depicting the same plants – are located in art galleries. Why are plant portraits classified differently, and kept apart? Is plant imagery to do with science, or with art? Do the two ‘kinds’ of art ever meet? This unique and ground-breaking book metaphorically ‘peels back the petals’ to explore southern African plant portraiture and discovers the meanings ascribed to the genres of ‘botanical art’ and ‘flower painting’. Well known for their particular contributions to botany, art, and art history, authors Marion Arnold, Peter Goldblatt, John Manning, John Rourke and Dee Snijman examine plant portraiture in southern Africa over several centuries. They provide engrossing and sometimes unique revelations on a broad spectrum of issues, including species ‘discovery’, insect pollination, biological classification, specimen collection, plant naming, portraiture, and the manner and style of artistic representation. The texts are enhanced and liberally illustrated by works of some of the countless travellers, botanists an artists who have so passionately and meticulously recorded South Africa’s rich floral heritage.’