SOUTH AFRICAN BOTANICAL ART (Sponsors Edition)

Sponsors Edition: 216 pages, 116 colour plates, 8 colour photographs, full dark green morocco, 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.

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 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 petalsr 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.

The Sponsors Edition is limited to 26 copies signed by Marion Arnold. Bound in at the front is a numbered print of a yellow arum lily, number 21 of 26, signed in pencil by the artist Auriel Batten. This copy is unlettered.