LONDON.- Two new publications share with readers the remarkable and diverse natural history drawings and watercolours from the Royal Library and Print Room at Windsor Castle.

Animalia from the Royal Collection and Botanicals from the Royal Collection, published by Royal Collection Trust, are full of rich and beautiful illustrations of flora and fauna, making them perfect gifts for plant and animal lovers and anyone inspired by the natural world.

The works depicted date from the late 15th century to the late 19th century, a period when European knowledge of the natural world was transformed by extensive engagement with Africa, Asia and the Americas. Introductions by Royal Collection Trust curators offer expert insights and context as well as highlighting the most recent research into the artists and naturalists that made some of the greatest natural history illustrations in the Royal Collection.

The natural world has been of interest to royalty for centuries, from the menageries of medieval kings and the gardens of the Georgians and Victorians to His Majesty The King’s own initiatives to support biodiversity, sustainability and the environment today. The botanical and natural images collected by monarchs through the centuries and carefully preserved in the Royal Collection reflect this long-held royal interest. Centuries later, the 80 illustrations in each book encourage us to look at the natural world with the same delight and fascination.

Animalia from the Royal Collection
Introduction by Andrew Brown, Assistant Curator of Books and Manuscripts, Royal Collection Trust

From the print of a family of hummingbirds by John Gould to the depiction of a craning, bright-pink flamingo by John James Audubon, Animalia from the Royal Collection is an exploration of the animal world through the eyes of artists, explorers and naturalists.

In the book’s introductory essay, readers will learn how these works were assembled into the Royal Collection during the ‘golden age’ of European natural history illustration in the 18th and 19th centuries, before illustrated publications were largely replaced by books printed with photographs.

In 1699, Maria Sibylla Merian, one of the greatest naturalist artists of her time, travelled to South America, where she captured the tropical flora and fauna in highly colourful watercolours. A highlight is her drawing of a caiman entangled with a coral snake; Merian preserved specimens of caimans to take back to Amsterdam to use both as models for her paintings and to sell to collectors.

Not all artists made such scientifically accurate works as Merian and her contemporary Mark Catesby, whose drawings from the Americas in the late 17th and early 18th centuries were purchased by George III in 1768. For example, Louis Renard’s illustrations of tropical fish made use of eye-catching, psychedelic colours that bore little relation to living creatures.

As well as the more exotic creatures, the book includes prints of native British birds reproduced from John Gould’s renowned ‘bird-books’, which were collected by Prince Albert and Queen Victoria. Gould had long received royal patronage, beginning his career as a taxidermist and counting George IV as a client, having stuffed a pet giraffe for him in 1826.

Amongst the works reproduced are illustrations from one of the greatest natural history books in the Royal Collection, John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Audubon’s original hand-coloured prints were life-size and printed on metre-high sheets of paper.

Botanicals from the Royal Collection
Introduction by Alice Alder, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, Royal Collection Trust

The richly illustrated Botanicals from the Royal Collection explores the depiction of plants, flowers, trees and fruit as recorded by some of history’s most accomplished botanical artists and naturalists.

Readers will learn about the collecting of Cassiano dal Pozzo, a member of one of the earliest scientific academies in Europe, who over many years assembled thousands of drawings and prints recording the natural world. These formed part of his ‘Paper Museum’, which was acquired by George III in 1762. These precise botanical studies are drawn with great clarity and attention to detail. An unusual example is a depiction of an enormous, abnormally grown head of broccoli, which was recorded because it was considered essential to study instances where nature had deviated from the norm in order to understand the workings of the natural world.

Plants not only served as objects of scientific classification or observation but also as sources of beauty and inspiration. While functional as botanical illustrations, Alexander Marshal’s strikingly beautiful watercolours of flowers that bloomed in 17th-century London were created purely for his own pleasure. Made at a time when the variety of plants available to English gardeners was greatly expanding, Marshal’s is the only English flower book to survive from the period and contains some of the most charming plant studies in botanical art, such as his watercolour of a sunflower with a goldfinch in miniature perched on one of its leaves.

Maria Sibylla Merian’s innovative illustrations of the insects and plants in Suriname in South America were unique at the time for showing how they interacted with each other. A colourful watercolour of a bright red chili pepper plant shows the life cycle of a moth across its stems and leaves, from caterpillar and cocoon to an adult with patterned wings, while another work shows a similar scene of a caterpillar crawling on a ripe pineapple, described by Merian as ‘the most outstanding of edible fruits’.