We spoke to special collections manager Andrea Hart (above) who co-wrote the new book Rare Treasures From The Library Of The Natural History Museum (Natural History Museum, £30)
What can you tell us about this book?
It’s a collection of essays on some of the rarest books from the museum’s extensive library, selected for both their scientific and artistic merit. Written and researched by library staff and museum scientists, the essays explore the books’ motivations, history and their contribution to our understanding of the natural world.
What makes Rare Treasures more special – and what proved a personal highlight for me during my own essay research – are the extraordinary and beautiful illustrations. Even if you remove the accompanying text, the illustrations tell the story of the history of printing and demonstrate the skill of the artists, engravers and colourists. Rare Treasures also celebrates the diversity of natural history publications over the past 500 years, and considers the financial and personal efforts and sacrifices required to produce many of them.
Tell us about your essays in this book.
I was invited to write five essays, four of which focused on botanical treasures. A long-time personal favourite is Michal Boym’s Flora Sinensis – not only for the wonderful hand coloured engravings, but also the rather charming anthropomorphic-looking animals.
The other botanical books I wrote about were Christoph Trew’s impressive Plantae Selectae illustrated by the German-born artist Georg Ehret, Basilius Besler’s enormous 1613 tome Hortus Eystettensis and Robert Furber’s Twelve Months of Flowers which features 12 beautiful plates of flower arrangements for each month of the year, the first illustrated nursery catalogue ever published.
What would gardeners find interesting about this book?
Rare Treasures features many illustrations of plants that would be of interest to gardeners. Georg Ehret’s plant portraits in Trew’s Plantae Selectae include the stunning night-blooming cereus Selenicereus grandiflorus along with other plates that demonstrate his absolute mastery of the Linnaean style of scientific botanical illustration. In stark contrast are Robert Thornton’s dramatic plant portraits that were set against symbolic and romantic backgrounds in his Temple of Flora.
Tell us about the prints that come with it.
A set of 40 prints of the most stunning and beautiful featured illustrations accompanies the book in a presentation case. Reproduced from the originals in the museum library and printed on high quality paper, they have been selected so that the reader can pair them up for framing if so desired.
Buy your copy from the Natural History Museum.
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