Important Notice

More Images

Emily Eden, Flowers from an Indian Garden: Love, Dusseldorf: L Baumann & Co., 1846 [?]

Tinted title page, 12 chromolithographic botanical plates: preface printed in gold with botanical border. Each with text leaf printed in gold; original moulded cloth boards with raised gilt tooling, watermarked silk endpapers, all edges gilt
37.5 x 29 x 1 cm

LIST OF PLATES
1. Eucharis Amazonia and other flowers / 2. The Hibiscus, The Peony, and other flowers / 3. Passion flower / 4. Papaver Somniverum. Papaver Rhass / 5. Jutropha Multifida. The Coral Flower / 6. The Salmali or Silk Cotton Tree / 7. Scarlet Hibiscus / 8. Lord Macartney’s Rose / 9. China Aster / 10. Nymphaea Rubra and Nymphaea Lotus / 11. Purple Arungabad Grape and White Kishmish Grape

A lovely Victorian botanical book by an aristocratic amateur artist living in India.

Known for her amusing accounts of English life in the 19th century, Emily Eden was a reputed poet and artist from London. Born into a family of aristocrats, Eden was acquainted with British political affairs and life from a young age.

When her brother George, Lord Auckland was appointed as Governor-General to India in 1836, Eden, along with her sister Fanny, accompanied him and travelled around the subcontinent for a few years. While Emily was sketching flowers, George launched the Afghan Campaign in 1839.

Her publications upon returning to England included Portraits of the Princes and People of India (1844), Up the Country (1866) and (posthumously by her niece) Letters from India (1872), novels The Semi-Detached House 1859, and the Semi-Attached Couple 1860.

She also made a presentation album of botanical watercolours called Original Sketches from Nature which was the basis for Flowers from an Indian Garden. The First Series: Love was privately printed by the German lithographers L. Baumann in 1846. The Second Series: Hope was privately printed by the German lithographers Breidenbach circa 1860. (Source: Bulletin of the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Vol. 15 No. 1, Spring 2003.)

This book is often erroneously attributed to Mrs Hope (Anne Fulton) 1809-1887, an English religious writer born in Calcutta.

NON-EXPORTABLE