Motley Talk about Botanical ladies
Two 18th Century ladies with troublesome husbands, who were the same age and skilled artists. They both lived in London, I wonder if they ever met?
Dear friends, March is Woman’s History month. Spring is also in the air and I have been thinking about gardens. So, before the end of the month I wanted to tell you about lives of two botanically inclined ladies. Botanical artists were needed to record plants and flowers before photography was invented, to enable correct identification and prevent accidental poisoning.
First, let me introduce you to Elizabeth Blachrie, born around 1700. She led a respectable life as the daughter of a wealthy merchant in Scotland. Elizabeth was well educated and a talented artist. But her only possible career in the 18th Century was as a wife, and at 27 years old she was considered well over the hill. And she lived in Aberdeen, at the time a small, cold, puritanical, granite city in the north of Scotland. Society was limited and it took over a week to travel to London on inadequate and dangerous roads.
Then her second cousin, the charismatic Alexander Blackwell came onto the scene, they fell in love and eloped to marry (because Elizabeth’s family disapproved, perhaps they knew something of Alexander’s feckless nature).
Alexander set himself up in a medical practice in Aberdeen, but though well-educated he was not actually trained as a physician! When this was challenged, the couple had to leave Aberdeen and make the treacherous journey to London.
In London Alexander set up as a publisher and they enjoyed a high standard of living. But again, Alexander bypassed the required training and did not register with the printer’s guild. Alexander already had debts from living beyond his means, so he was unable to pay the fine from the printer’s guild and ended up in Debtor's Prison.
What was Elizabeth to do? Astonishingly, since herbs and plants had been commonly used for centuries, until this time there was no illustrated herbal. Elizabeth decided to make one. She took rooms near Chelsea Physic Garden, where there were many different herbs and plants from around the world. Elizabeth did the work of many; she drew the plants, gathered the information about the plants (she was advised by many eminent botanists), visited Alexander in prison so he could add the scientific Latin & Greek names, engraved the copper printing plates for the 500 images & text, and hand-coloured the printed illustrations.
Four prints were published weekly over 125 weeks, and afterwards combined into a book called ‘The Curious Herbal’ (you can see more of Elizabeth’s paintings for the book online at the British Library site). The book was very successful. Elizabeth was a canny business woman and she maintained the rights to the book. The success of the herbal meant Alexander’s debts were paid and he was released from prison.
Though they seemed to have a happy marriage, Alexander did not change his ways. After some unsuccessful business ventures he got himself into debt again, and Elizabeth had to sell most of her rights to The Curious Herbal. Then Alexander had an offer to go to Sweden, leaving Elizabeth and their three children in London. He was successful in his new life and was appointed court physician to Frederick I of Sweden! Just as Elizabeth was preparing to travel to Sweden, Alexander was accused of conspiracy against the Crown Prince. It is not clear if he was guilty of treason, just gullible, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Alexander was found guilty and sentenced to death.
On 9 August 1747 Alexander walked to his death. He remained charming to the end - at the block, having laid his head wrong, he remarked that since it was his first beheading, he lacked experience and needed instruction.
Elizabeth lived another 11 years. Her children all predeceased her. She is buried at All Saints Church in Chelsea, London. The Curious Herbal remained in print for decades after her death.
The second lady is Mrs Delany. “I wish you had known Mrs Delany! She was a perfect pattern of a perfect fine lady; a real fine lady of other days. Her manners were faultless; her deportment was of marked elegance; her speech was all sweetness; and her air and address were all dignity. I always looked up to Mrs. Delany, as the model of an accomplished gentlewoman of former times.” Edmund Burke (1729-1794), Irish politician.
Mrs Delany was born Mary Granville also in 1700, to modestly well-off Wiltshire gentry who had close connections with Royalty. She was well-educated in classics, music and art. Her family lived in London and when she grew up Mary expected to become a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. As she wrote in her autobiography and letters (there are six volumes!) she met Handel (composer) when she was 10 years old, “I first saw Mr Handel, who was introduced to my Uncle Stanley by Mr Heidegger, the famous manager of the opera, and the most ugly man that was ever formed. We had no better instrument in the house than a little [harpsicord] of mine, on which that great musician performed wonders.”
But, as she later wrote, her world came crashing down. “The death of Queen Anne [in 1714] made a considerable alteration in our affairs … not only my father but all my relations that were in public employments suffered greatly by this change.” Mary’s father’s eldest brother was Lord Lansdowne, who offered his brother a house in Gloucestershire and an allowance. So, the family quit London and Society.
When Mary was 17 years old she went on a visit to her Uncle and Aunt Lansdowne in Wiltshire. While there she was pressurised to marry Alexander Pendarves, a Cornish MP, who was 57. Mary disliked Pendarves, but due to her family’s financial dependency on her uncle, she felt she had to agree to the marriage. Mary wrote, “I was married with great pomp. Never was woe drest [dressed] out in gayer colours, and when I was led to the altar, I wished from my soul I had been led, as Iphigenia was, to be sacrificed. I was sacrificed. I lost, not life indeed, but I lost all that makes life desirable – joy and peace of mind . . .”
It was not a happy marriage and they had no children. Seven years later Mary was a widow, allowing her more freedom than being unmarried, though her husband had not changed his will since his marriage, and left her only a small pension. Mary moved back to London. She seemed to have a gift of friendship, helped by her prolific letter writing. She was friends with, amongst many others, Jonathan Swift (writer) and Joseph Banks (Botanist). She also moved in aristocratic circles, attended the coronation of King George III, and was close friends with the Margaret, Duchess of Portland.
During this time Mary continued to garden, paint and do her embroidery. She covered her court dress with a cascade of embroidered botanically accurate flowers. “We went at one [pm] – such crowding [at Court], such finery I never saw; with great difficulty I made my curtsey, and the Queen commended my clothes.”
Aged 43 Mary renewed her friendship with Dr Patrick Delany, a widowed Irish clergyman. They fell in love, married and the couple moved to Ireland. They had a very happy marriage during which Mary became even more interested in gardening, painting and botany. After twenty-five years of marriage Dr Delany died and Mrs Delany was now a 68-year-old widow.
Mrs Delany returned to England and became a companion to her friend, the Duchess of Portland. Then, at the age of 72, Mrs Delany invented a new way to imitate flowers, making collage pictures using paper and glue. She would find paper of the correct colour or paint her own paper, and then cut it up and glue it together – she called it a ’paper mosaic’.
The pictures were astonishingly accurate and done by eye, without any pre-drawing; it was also novel to show the flowers on a black background. Botanists had such a high opinion of her works that they sent her rare plants to copy. Mrs Delany also visited Chelsea Physic Garden; and wrote a poem about making her pictures:
Hail to the happy hour! When fancy led My pensive mind the flow'ry path to tread; And gave me emulation to presume With timid art to trace fair Nature's bloom.
Mrs Delany made around 1000 paper collage flower pictures, until at the age of 84 she had to stop, due to her failing eyesight.
In 1785 the Duchess died, and Queen Charlotte granted Mrs Delany a house in Windsor and a pension. Mrs Delany died in 1788 and was buried at St James’ Church in Piccadilly, but her tomb was destroyed in the Second World War. There is a memorial to Mrs Delany inside the church. The British Museum has a number of Mrs Delany’s pictures and displays two at a time in room 1.
Such amazing ladies, who are not well known nowadays. Sadly, there is no evidence that they ever met, though for some years they both lived in London at the same time.