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A Curious Herbal: Elizabeth Blackwell's Pioneering Masterpiece of Botanical Art - Marta Mcdowell
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In the 1730s, Elizabeth Blackwell (1699-c. 1758) found herself penniless, with her ne'er-do-well husband confined to a London debtor's prison. A talented artist, she came up with a unique and ambitious moneymaking scheme: the publication of a new illustrated guide to medicinal plants, including many New World species not depicted in earlier books. Blackwell's Curious Herbal , published between 1737 and 1739, was hailed for its usefulness to doctors and apothecaries and met with considerable financial success. This magnificent volume--the first modern edition of Blackwell's herbal--reproduces all five hundred of her exquisite plates. Blackwell not only made the drawings, but prepared the copper plates and personally hand-colored them. Her handwritten descriptions of the plants, which she creatively adapted (with permission) from Joseph Miller's Botanicum Officinale , retain considerable interest. This book features a previously unknown preface by Blackwell, in which she reveals her passion for art and nature, and her vision for the herbal. Two introductory texts contextualize Blackwell's achievement: the noted garden writer Marta McDowell explores the history of herbals as a genre, and the state of botanical knowledge in Blackwell's time; and the historian Janet Stiles Tyson relates the artist's rather extraordinary biography. A Curious Herbal will be essential for all lovers of botanical art, and for anyone interested in women's history and the history of science.