Spode & Curtis

Cyclamen coum on plate and paper (below)

Thanks to Val Bott for bringing the following to my attention.  Its always interesting to see how different art forms influence each other, in this case botanical illustration on porcelain decoration.  

The post by Pam Woolliscroft author of Spode History tells about the botanical designs employed by Spode in the 19th century and which were inspired by the plates in Curtis's Botanical Magazine.  The magazine was founded by William Curtis in 1787.  Samuel  succeeded to the editorship of the magazine in 1827 selling his rights in 1846. Curtis's Botanical Magazine (1801-1920) is downloadable for free from our good friends at the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Spode is a Stoke-on-Trent based pottery company that was founded by Josiah Spode (1733-1797) in 1770. Josiah Spode earned renown for perfecting under-glaze blue transfer printing in 1783-1784 – a development that led to the launch in 1816 of Spode’s Blue Italian range which has remained in production ever since.  Josiah Spode is also often credited with developing a successful formula for fine bone china.

A snip at €2,413

A modern example of the same would be Royal Copenhagen's beautiful - but expensive - Flora Danica collection.

Biodiversity Heritage Library Images Follow-up

Thanks for your comment Anonymous, and I have been Tweeting with the folks at the Biodiversity Heritage Library  (@BioDivLibrary) on exactly that.  The topic of plant names that correspond with the images in their photostream.

In some cases there is no problem, the plant is named on the plate, for example Hooker's rhododendrons. 

But in the case of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, for instance each plate has a number and each volume an Index that links plate  numbers to plant names

I suggested to the BHL that they put the plant name in the image file name, but can see that this would be too labour intensive.

The BHL replied asking that we users help by 'machine tagging' the images. 

  

The link is in blue

In the bottom left corner of every image there is a link that takes you to the image in its volume on the BHL website, and the next page in the text has the plant name/description.

I then asked the BHL, for the Curtis's volumes at least, to include in each photoset an image of the Index which would make it far easier and quicker for volunteers to help machine tag the plants.  We will wait and see what happens.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library does it again

I am a huge fan of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.  It is simply a fantastic resource for accessing old monographs and periodicals for free and without the hassle of having to travel to libraries.  You simply download the required tome / volume as a pdf - and to top it all, its FREE.

Now the BHL is offering another wonderful resource - the BioDivLibrary photostream of scanned plates of, for the purposes of this blog, flowering plants. The collection of images is ever increasing, but already there is a folder of plates from Curtis's Botanical Magazine and Walter Fitch's lovely rhododendrons from Joseph Hooker's The rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya. 

But, of course, the site holds much more than just flowering plants.  So do take a look and make use of this superb resource.