Women in Botanical Illustration

The first known botanical illustration is from approximately 70 CE when the Greek botanist Pedanius Dioscorides illustrated De Materia Media. His drawings helped readers identify medicinal plants. As printing presses advanced to include color, the practice grew and diversified. With the growing interest in botany in the eighteenth century, botanical illustration became professionalized.

Few women botanical illustrators or natural scientists from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were widely recognized, credited, or published under their own names. However, women permeated the natural sciences, whether they worked as independent illustrators or uncredited artists. Maria Sybilla Merian and Anna Botsford Comstock, featured in this exhibit, are two women who broke the mold and earned widespread recognition for their work.

Through time, the art of botanical illustration changed to widely accept women and various new styles and mediums. In a time of high-definition photography, illustrations are still used today as scientific renderings of botanicals because artists can emphasize elements for diagnostic or identification purposes. Botanical illustration has also expanded into the fields of fine art and fashion. As seen in the artist books by Deborah Bryan and Radha Pandey in this exhibit, botanical illustrations can be used to tell a story, share a perspective, or highlight an issue.

This exhibit brings attention to women who succeeded in studying and practicing botanical art. The examples span the late 1600s to 2022, but this collection of books only partially represents women's impact in the botanical arts.

Below is a selection of books from DU Libraries' circulating collections.

By the American Society of Botanical Artists and Carol Woodin and Robin A. Jess, editors, 2020

This book uses tutorials to teach readers step-by-step how to master every major technique of botanical artistry.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

Illustrated by Katie Scott and written by Kathy Willis, 2017

This book was created as part of the “Botanicum” exhibition displayed at the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London, UK, in 2017. The exhibit and this book explore the millions of years plants have existed, how plants have changed over time, and the many life forms of plants.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Victoria Clarke and Rosie Pickles, 2016

This book uses pairings of images to investigate the motivations behind botanical illustrations – practical, scientific, commercial, etc. Comparison of the similarities and differences of artworks helps to highlight the uniqueness of the subject or artist and reaffirm aspects that are the same.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By John W. Kress and Shirley Sherwood, 2009

This book was created as part of “The Art of Plant Evolution” exhibition, which was first displayed at the Denver Art Museum in 2002, then recreated for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. in 2003, and the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London, UK, in 2008. The exhibits and this book explore where art meets science by detailing the history of the science of evolution research, beginning with the theories of Charles Darwin and ending with DNA, through scientific botanical illustrations.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Shirley Sherwood, 2005

The book was created as part of the “A New Flowering: 1000 Years of Botanical Art” exhibition displayed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, UK, in 2005. The book and the exhibit show botanical material created in the last eleven centuries side-by-side with the works of contemporary botanical artists.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

Below is a selection of two artist books from DU Libraries' Special Collections and Archives.

By Deborah Bryan, 2006

Dr. Deborah Bryan is a former assistant professor of art at Tusculum College. In 2016, she left Tusculum to focus on her studio work. Dr. Bryan is a printmaker, a book artist, and a photographer. Her work has been shown in national and international juried exhibitions, such as the North American Print Biennial at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, Mass. Her last solo exhibition in Denver was “Look Again: Artist's Books and Prints by Deborah Bryan” at the Abecedarian Gallery in 2011.

View the book in the DU Special Collections & Archives  here .

By Radha Pandey, 2014­

Anatomia botanica was created for Radha Pandey’s graduate thesis at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. It also won the MICA Book Award at the Pyramid Atlantic Book Fair in 2014. Ms. Pandey is a papermaker and a letterpress printer. She is currently working on a book inspired by 17th-century Mughal floral portraiture and how it was impacted by colonialization. Her work was last shown in Denver in a group exhibit, Artists’ Book Cornucopia VI, at the Abecedarian Gallery.

View the book in the DU Special Collections & Archives  here .

Anna Botsford Comstock was born in Cattaraugua County, New York, in 1854. She attended the newly opened Cornell University to study the natural sciences. At Cornell University, she met John Henry Comstock, an entomologist, and they later married and became partners. She illustrated many of his publications and co-authored A Manual for the Study of Insects in 1895.

In 1897, Anna Botsford Comstock was hired as a professor of nature study at Cornell University. She was a part of the Nature Study Movement that sought to educate people in the natural sciences to encourage conservation. She continued to write and lecture after her retirement in 1922, and she passed away in 1930. Her contributions to the natural sciences and conservation were recognized in 1988 when the National Wildlife Federation named her the “Mother of Nature Education.”

Below is a selection of books from DU Libraries' circulating collections.

By Anna Botsford Comstock (1854-1930), 1931

Anna Botsford Comstock compiled this handbook, first published in 1911, based on the Home Nature-Study Course leaflets that were published in limited editions from 1903-1911. Her goal was to design a handbook that was more accessible to school teachers and to make the lessons more widely available in 1911 and later.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Anna Botsford Comstock, 1939

This twenty-fourth edition of Anna Botsford Comstock’s handbook was reprinted in 1939 with revisions and new illustrations to reflect new findings in the natural sciences. Dr. Marjorie Ruth Ross supervised the team of Cornell University professors who made recommendations and provided illustrations for the updated handbook published nine years after Comstock’s death in 1930.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Anna Botsford Comstock and John Henry Comstock, 1917

Anna Botsford Comstock and John Henry Comstock assembled this book in 1895 to be similar to the manuals used in botany to catalog and describe plants. Entomology (the study of insects) was a new field when this book was published. The Comstock's created this manual of insects to help researchers and educators to identify the different species.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

by Anna Botsford Comstock and John Henry Comstock, 1913

While there was an abundance of books about butterflies available in 1913, the Comstocks created this manual to be a richly illustrated and approachable guide that could be used by non-scholars.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

Mary Morris Vaux was born in 1860 in Philadelphia, PA. During annual family trips to the Canadian Rockies beginning in 1887, she became a mountain climber, outdoorswoman, photographer, and watercolor painter. In 1913, she climbed Mount Robson, the highest peak in the British Columbia Rockies, and in 1915 she married Charles Doolittle Walcott, a paleontologist and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute. They met in the field while Walcott searched for invertebrate fossils in the Burgess Shale. Mary Vaux Walcott continued to travel to the Rocky Mountains every summer well into her old age.

Between 1925 and 1928, Mary Vaux Walcott published four hundred drawings in five volumes of North American Wild Flowers. They were sold as part of her husband’s fund-raising campaign, and all proceeds went to the Smithsonian Institute’s endowment. Mount Mary Vaux in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada, was named in her honor.

Below is a North American Wildflowers, Volume 1, and six prints from the volume from DU Libraries' Special Collections & Archives.

By Mary Vaux Walcott and published by the Smithsonian Institute, 1925

View the book in the DU Special Collections & Archives  here .

by Mary Vaux Walcott, 1925

by Mary Vaux Walcott from North American Wildflowers, Volume 1, 1925

by Mary Vaux Walcott from North American Wildflowers, Volume 1, 1925

by Mary Vaux Walcott from North American Wildflowers, Volume 1, 1925

by Mary Vaux Walcott from North American Wildflowers, Volume 1, 1925

by Mary Vaux Walcott from North American Wildflowers, Volume 1, 1925

Maria Sibylla Merian was born in Frankfort am Main, a German territory, in 1647. After the death of her father, Matthaus Merian, an owner of printing and publishing houses, her mother married her second husband, Jacob Marrell, a Dutch still-life painter. He inspired Merian to become a skilled still-life artist specializing in flowers.

In 1665, Maria Sibylla Merian married Johann Andreas Graff, an architectural painter. In 1691, she, her husband, and her daughters, Johanna Helena and Dorothea Maria, settled in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where Meria could own her own business selling artist supplies, mounted insects, and preserved animals. In 1714, Merian suffered a stroke, and in 1717, she died.

Maria Sibylla Merian is one of the most important contributors to the natural sciences. After she published her book Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname, her work became renowned in The Netherlands, England, Denmark, Germany, and France. Then, around twenty years after her death, Carl Linnaeus developed a new way to classify the natural world. In 1758, in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae, he included around a hundred species using Maria Sibylla Merian’s illustrations.

Below is a selection of books from DU Libraries' circulating collections. 

By Maria Sibylla Merian and David Brafman and Stephanie Schrader, editors, 2008

This booklet, published by the J. Paul Getty Museum, is a collection of full-illustrations focused on particular details. The illustrations are from Maria Sibylla Merian’s second edition of Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname, published in 1730. The first edition was published in 1705.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Boris Friedewald, 2015

This book provides a brief illustrated biography of Maria Sibylla Merian’s life and work.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Ella Reitsma and assisted by Sandrine Ulenberg, Entomologist, 2008

This book was created as part of the “Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science” exhibition displayed at The Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA, in 2008. The exhibit and this book provide a new perspective on Merian’s life, impact on science, methods as an artist and scientist, and her two daughters.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Joyce Sidman, 2018

This book, aimed at young adults and teens, outlines Maria Sibylla Merian’s life and contributions to science using detailed graphics, images, and illustrations.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Kim Todd, 2007

This book is a dramatization of Maria Sibylla Merian’s biography. By making the information more engaging, author Kim Todd makes Merian relatable and at the center of her own story.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here  and online  here .

Below is a selection of books from DU Libraries' circulating collections. 

By Anna Sagal, 2020

In this book, Sagal discusses the ways in which women in the Eighteenth-Century leveraged the areas of the natural sciences and publishing in which they were allowed to make larger impacts on the fields.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Margaret Mee and compiled by the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, 2020

This book contains around sixty of Mee’s major works, accompanied by sketches that she made in the field. The text is taken directly from the journals she kept during her travels through the Brazilian rainforest beginning in 1956.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, 2018

The Marianne North Gallery in the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens first opened in 1882, and it featured 627 paintings of flowers and landscapes from thirteen countries. Between 1833 and 1885, that gallery was extended to accommodate the paintings made during North’s last three journeys to South Africa, Seychelles, and Chile. The gallery then held 848 artworks. All of these paintings are still on display and can be seen today. This book is the first time that the entire collection has been published.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Jack Kramer, 1996

This book highlights the eighteenth and nineteenth-century women botanical illustrators that were frequently left uncredited despite illustrating many famous periodicals, such as Botanic Garden and Curtis’s Botanical Magazine.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

By Marcia Bonta, 1991

This book consists of twenty-five biographies of women natural scientists. In a study of nineteenth-century women botanists, Emanuel D. Rudolf determined that 1,185 women were active in botany. In Bonta’s section about botanists, she includes the biographies of Kate Furbish, Kate Brandegee, Alice Eastwood, Ynes Mexia, Mary Sophie Young, Elizabeth Gertrude Knight Britton, and Agnes Chase.

View the book in the DU Libraries  here .

Thank you for taking the time to go through this exhibit. It was created to showcase the DU Libraries' collections and celebrate women's past and present contributions to the botanical arts. To view more online exhibitions made by the DU Libraries, visit  library.du.edu/collections-library-materials/exhibits/online-exhibits .