January 07, 2019

Botany for the Artist (ebook)

January 07, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

Simblet, Sarah. Botany for the Artist. Great Britain: Dorling Kindersley Limited. 2010. Available from Internet Archive here.

It is packaged on the Internet Archive with Botany Illustrated – available via the same link. The author is an artist rather than a botanist but her passion for creating botanical art comes through in this book. It contains a lot of photographs, some botanical print history and how to draw plants. I’ll never be a botanical artist, but I appreciated this book.

Botanical prints are something I enjoy particularly in the winter when the outdoors here is not as colorful; many of the trees are bare and we are having a lot of cloudy days. Browsing through a book like this is an armchair version of walking through a conservatory or traveling to some other part of the globe where the air temperature is much warmer!

I picked four images to share here….so many beautiful ones to choose from …worth a browse through the whole book on a January day indoors.

January 03, 2019

eBotanical Prints – December 2018

January 03, 2019/ Gwen Morrison

27 more books added to the big list (find it here) in December. The sample images for 27 new this month are included in the slideshow below.

The copyright dates range from 1760 to 2010….lots of changes in the world over that time period.

Botany Illustrated * Glimn-Lacy, Janice; Kaufman, Peter B. * sample image * 2006

Botany for the artist * Simblet, Sarah * sample image * 2010

The Florist * Sayer, Robert * sample image * 1760

Billeder af Nordens flora * Lindman, Carl Axel Magnus * sample image * 1901

Taschenflora des Alpens-Wanderers * Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1892

Flore coloriée portative du touriste dans les Alpes * Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1904

Flora fossilis Arctica - V1 * Heer, Oswald; Cramer, Karl Eduard; Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik; Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1868

Flora fossilis Arctica - V2 * Heer, Oswald; Cramer, Karl Eduard; Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik; Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1871

Flora fossilis Arctica - V3 * Heer, Oswald; Cramer, Karl Eduard; Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik; Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1874

Flora fossilis Arctica - V4 * Heer, Oswald; Cramer, Karl Eduard; Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik; Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1877

Flora fossilis Arctica - V6 * Heer, Oswald; Cramer, Karl Eduard; Nordenskiold, Adolf Erik; Schroter, Carl * sample image * 1880

Botanical Illustration In The Nineteenth Century * Schmidt, Alesandra; Jocoby, Trudy B. * sample image * 1996

Grevillea * Cooke, Mordecai Cubitt; Massee, George * sample image * 1872

British Fungi * Massee, George * sample image * 1911

Portefeuille des horticulteurs V1 * Gerard, Frederic (editor) * sample image * 1847

Portefeuille des horticulteurs V2 * Gerard, Frederic (editor) * sample image * 1848

African Violet Magazine - 1983 * * sample image * 1983

Choix de plantes rares ou nouvelles * Miquel, Friedrich Anton Wilhelm * sample image * 1863

De Noord-Nederlandsche vergiftige gewassen * Miquel, Friedrich Anton Wilhelm * sample image * 1836

William Coxe: manuscript (atlas) * Coxe, William * sample image * 1831

Emily Dickenson Herbarium Pages * sample image * 1846

Beatric Potter, mycologist * sample image * 1897

Elements of Botany * Duppa, Richard * sample image * 1812

Orchids: their cultures and management * Watson, William; Chapman, H. J. (editor) * sample image * 1903

Cactus culture for amateurs: a concise and practical guide to the management of a little understood family of plants * Watson, William * sample image * 1920

A flora of North America: illustrated by coloured figures, drawn from nature (Volume 1) * Barton, William Paul Crillon * sample image * 1821

Description des plantes rares cultivees a Malmaison et a Navarre * Bonplan, Aime; Bessa Pancrace; Didot, Pierre; Redoute, Pierre Joseph * sample image * 1812

December 24, 2018

3 Free eBooks – December 2018

December 24, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I always am challenged to pick just three books from the eBooks I’ve found during the month. There is a lot of variety in my selections this month….from archeology to typewriter art to a story book. Enjoy!

Savill, Mervyn. Pre-Inca Art and Culture. London: Macgibbon & Kee. 1960. Available at Internet Archive here. There are many books that are from the Archaeology Survey of India that are now available on Internet Archive. This one is from 1960. Some of the art looks very exotic but these three busts of rulers look very human indeed.

23j 18 12.jpg — Riddell, Alan. ***Typewriter Art***. London Magazine Editions. 1975. Available Internet Archive here. I can remember making banners on continuous feed printers in the 1970s! I don’t think I ever made anything as elaborate as this cityscape, but this book brought back the memory.

44g 18 12.jpg — Olfers, Sibylee von. ***The Story of the Root-Children***. 1906. The English version was published by Floris Books, Edinburgh in 1990 and the 5th impression is available from Internet Archive here. The illustrations are interesting. Wikipedia has a short biography of the author. She was a German art teacher and nun that created her picture books for her younger sister in the early 1900s. I wish all of her books were available on Internet Archive…even if they were the German editions…since I am most interested in her illustrations.

December 11, 2018

Reichenbachs’ Icones florae Germanicae et Helveticae

December 11, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

A father and son - Ludwig and Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach – produced 24 volumes of the Icones florae Germanicae et Helveticae of which Internet Archive has 20 available here. The father is better known for his glass sea creatures and Henrich Gustav Reichenbach is better known for his work on orchids. Still – the illustrations in these volumes are colorful and more like traditional botanical prints in the 1800s – with the central plant in color and plant parts drawn in available space around that depiction.

The colors look a little faded….but that may have been the way they were originally. They still are enough to perk up a cold winter day.

December 10, 2018

Gustav Hegi’s Alpenflora

December 10, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Gustav Hegi was a Swiss botanist that worked in Germany for most of his career. He is best known for editing Illustrierte Flora von Mittel-Europa from 1908 – 1931 (he died in 1932) writing approximately a third of the content during those years. I started with his earlier work – Alpenflora – which is available from the Internet Archive here. The first edition was published in 1905; the edition available on Internet Archive is from 1922.

The botanical illustrations are grouped on the pages. My favorite is probably the one for pines…but the groups of flowers are appealing too – not as bouquets but how the author made use of the whole page to maximize the plants he could document.

The colors on this scanned copy appear to be very good. It’s a good book to enjoy on a winter day.

November 18, 2018

3 Free eBooks – November 2018

November 18, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

It is so easy to find books online these days. More institutions are scanning their older collections and Internet Archive is the access hub for accessing many of those scanned collections. Many books that would have been hard to find because they are out-of-print are now available in digital form.

Matz, Friedrich. Art of the World: Art of Crete and Early Greece, The prelude to Greek Art. New York: Crown Publishers. 1962. Available from Internet Archive here. A little dated (lots has been discovered and/or figured out since the 1960s), but the pictures are great. I loved the small stone jug. The text said it was probably stalactite. It was found in eastern Crete.

We are traveling back from New Mexico today…having enjoyed our second foray to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Keeping with that theme – there are two books on my favorites list for this month that are related:

Johnsgard, Paul A. Sandhill and whooping cranes: ancient voices over America’s wetlands. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2011. Available for checkout from Internet Archive here.

2018 11 ebook3.jpg — ERIC. ***Wildlife of New Mexico: A Coloring Book***. 1986. Available from Internet Archive here. There are 31 animals pictured along with a map of their range when the book was published in the 1980s. The javelina must have expanded its range since it is now seen in the refuge which in south central New Mexico. But the highlight of the festival – always – is the sandhill cranes.

November 14, 2018

Alpine Plants

November 14, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

All four volumes of Joseph Seboth’s Die Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt (Alpine plants painted from nature) are available from the Internet Archive here. The books were published between 1879 and 1884.

The author does not have an entry in Wikipedia so it is difficult to learn very much about him. He was referred to in The Art of Botanical Illustration (Wilfrid Blunt, William Thomas Steam. 1949) as someone omitted from the book….but they did not give any rationale for the omission. There was a Czech site that has more information (after Google translated the page):

Seboth was Austrian and a prominent illustrator of botanical books.

He lived from 1814-1883 so these 4 books were completed just before his death. They were published in Prague.

Some of the references to this series of books published soon after were critical of the illustrations. There are not extra drawings of flower parts or seeds in the illustrations so maybe that made them more art and less ‘botanical print.’

Still – the illustrations are worth browsing through. I find botanical images like these particularly appealing on rainy days and all during the winter!

November 13, 2018

Indigenous Flowers of the Hawaiian Islands

November 13, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Isabella McHutcheson Sinclair was born in Scotland but emigrated to New Zealand as a child and then married into the Sinclair family that owned land in Hawai’i. She published her Indigenous Flowers of the Hawaiian Islands in 1885 as Mrs. Francis Sinclair. It’s available from Internet Archive here.

Her book was the first book published with color images of Hawaiian flowering plants. She painted the flowers she saw and interviewed native Hawaiians to glean what they new about then plants. I selected 4 of the 44 plates to include in this post.

As I looked at the images, I wondered how many of the plants still exist…which ones were brought by the Polynesian colonists and not actually indigenous.

November 12, 2018

Louis van Houtte Botanical Books

November 12, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Louis van Houtte was a Belgian horticulturist. The 23 volumes of Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe which he is known for are available via Internet Archive here. There are over 2,000 colored plates. Many of the specimens were evidently from his nursery which was the most successful nursery in Europe at that time, so the books were references and catalogs for his business. The books were published between 1845 and 1883. It must have taken a lot of dedication to produce this body of work and run a business as well. Several volumes were published after he died so he must have had a dedicated group of people established to continue the work.

It took me over a month to get all the way through the volumes. I selected an image from each book and am showcasing them below.

The botanical prints from the 1800s are one of the highlights of the century and I am pleased to be finding new eBooks full of the colorful and educational prints.

November 11, 2018

eBotanical Prints – October 2018

November 11, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

30 eBotanical Print books in October! I continue to be surprised at how many botanical print books there are in the Internet Archive. Most of them are from the 1800s. The quality of the original works and then the quality of the scans being made of the books makes viewing botanical on prints online on a larger monitor well worth the effort. In subsequent days – I’ll highlight 3 books/collections from October. For day - enjoy the October Botanical print slide carousel. Check out some of the eBooks using the links below the pictures.

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V2 (1846) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1846

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V3 (1847) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1847

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V4 (1848) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1848

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V5 (1849) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1849

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V6 (1850) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1850

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V7 (1852) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1852

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V8 (1853) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1853

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V9 (1854) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1854

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V10(1855) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1855

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V11(1856) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1856

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V12 (1857) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1857

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V13 (1858) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1858

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V14 (1861) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1861

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V15 (1862-1865) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1865

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V16 (1865-1867) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1867

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V17 (1868) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1868

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V18 (1869 - 1870) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1870

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V19 (1873) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1873

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V20 (1874) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1874

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V21 (1875) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1874

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V22 (1877) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1877

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V23 (1880) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1880

Indigenous flowers of the Hawaiian islands * Sinclair, Francis, Mrs. (Isabella McHutcheson) * sample image * 1885

Sertum Anglicum, seu, Plantae rariores quae in hortis juxta Londinum * L'Héritier de Brutelle, Charles Louis * sample image * 1788

The genus Masdevallia * Woolward, Florence * sample image * 1896

Die Orchideen * Schlechter, Rudolf * sample image * 1915

Die Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt V1 * Seboth, Joseph; Graf, Ferdinand; Petrasch, Joh * sample image * 1879

Die Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt V2 * Seboth, Joseph; Graf, Ferdinand; Petrasch, Joh * sample image * 1880

Die Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt V3 * Seboth, Joseph; Graf, Ferdinand; Petrasch, Joh * sample image * 1881

Die Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt V4 * Seboth, Joseph; Graf, Ferdinand; Petrasch, Joh * sample image * 1884

October 19, 2018

3 Free eBooks – October 2018

October 19, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

There are so many good eBooks available free of charge. All three are from the Internet Archive this month.

Paglia, Camille. Glittering Images – A Journey through Art from Egypt to Star Wars. New York: Pantheon Books. 2012. Available from Internet Archive here. It’s a good book to browse through online – like a digital ‘coffee table’ book – reading only the captions.

2018 10 ebook2a.jpg — Brock, Alan St. Hill. ***Pyrotechnics: the history and art of firework making***. London: Daniel O’Connor. 1922. Available from Internet Archive here. The depiction of fireworks is quite different between the Chinese and Western Europe/America.

The author was from the 8th generation of the Brock family to made fireworks in England.

The Diani Beach Art Gallery. Affordable Art Selection September October 2018. Kenya: Diani Beach Contemporary African Art. Available from Internet Archive here. Sometimes catalogs can be worth looking at as a book. I enjoyed the vibrant colors and depictions of African people/scenes.

October 04, 2018

eBotanical Prints – September 2018

October 04, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

It was a light month for botanical books because I was busy with some volumes of insect prints.

October is set up to be a big month for botanical print books because of the many volumes of Louis van Houtte words that are available on Internet Archive. I found the first volume toward the end of September and am savoring them all through October. There are at least 20 volumes!

Enjoy the September Botanical print slide carousel. Check out some of the eBooks using the links below the pictures.

Sturm's Figures of plants V2 * Sturm, Jakob and Johann * sample image * 1798

Sturm's Figures of plants V3 * Sturm, Jakob and Johann * sample image * 1798

Sturm's Figures of plants V4 * Sturm, Jakob and Johann * sample image * 1798

Sturm's Figures of plants V5 * Sturm, Jakob and Johann * sample image * 1798

Deutschlands flora in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen Abt. 1 Bd. 7-8 * Strum, Jakob * sample image * 1809

Australian Orchids V2 Pt 3 * Fitgerald, Robert David * sample image * 1882

Australian Orchids V2 Pt 4 * Fitgerald, Robert David * sample image * 1882

Australian Orchids V2 Pt 5 * Fitgerald, Robert David * sample image * 1882

Australian Orchids V2 Pt 7 * Fitgerald, Robert David * sample image * 1882

Cryptogames vasculaires V1 * Fee, Antoine Apollinaire * sample image * 1873

Cryptogames vasculaires V2 * Fee, Antoine Apollinaire * sample image * 1873

Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe V1 (1845) * van Houtte, Louis * sample image * 1845

Here is a list of all 1400+ books containing botanical books that I’ve found online – freely available. Enjoy!

September 27, 2018

3 Free eBooks – September 2018

September 27, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

All three of the selections this month are multiple items. The first is a series of books from the late 1700s about insects; the second and third are magazines that are within the past few years.

Panzer, Georg Wolfgasng Franz; Sturm, Jakob. Favnae insectorvm Germanicae initia, oder, Deutschlands Insecten. Nürnberg:In den Felseckerschen Buchhandlung. 1796. A series of books available from Internet Archive here. They are in German but the plates (my Jakob Sturm) are the draw. Lots and lots of insects!

Morfield, Angie Daly (editor). Missouri Conservationist. Missouri Department of Conservation. Available from the department website here. The monthly magazine about conservation in the state. If you are a resident of Missouri a subscription to the printed magazine is free! I am looking at it online at this point…learning about the plants and animals of Missouri prior to my daughter moving there. Lots of great pictures of various parts of the state.

2018 09 ebook 3.jpg — Carey, Victoria (editor). ***Country Style: Australia Coast to Coast***. Several issues of the magazine (2015 and 2016 vintage) are available from Internet Archive here. I liked the photographs of gardens and houses….and animals. They have a large ad for Fancy Feast cat food in every issue!

September 10, 2018

eBotanical Prints – August 2018

September 10, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I perused 22 botanical books in August. They just seem to add up over the course of each month; I keep expecting to come to a time when I am not finding news ones – but it clearly hasn’t happened yet.

There was a lot of variety in the types of books in August.

Some more art-like…others showing flowers and seeds and leaves

Color and pen/ink and photographs

Publication dates from 1645 to 1943

Some of the books had so many beautiful images, I had a hard time picking the one sample image to feature.

Enjoy the August Botanical print slide carousel. Check out some of the eBooks using the links below the pictures.

Groups of flowers : drawn and accurately coloured after nature * Brookshaw, George * sample image * 1817

A new treatise on flower painting, or, Every lady her own drawing master * Brookshaw, George * sample image * 1818

Groups of fruit : accurately drawn and coloured after nature, with full directions for the young artist * Brookshaw, George * sample image * 1817

Ferns of Kentucky * Williamson, John * sample image * 1878

Beautiful Ferns * Eaton, Daneil Cady * sample image * 1886

Icones plantarum rariorum * Schwegman, Henricus; Schneevoogt, G. Vorhelm * sample image * 1793

Recueil de planches de botanique de l'encyclopedie. V1 * Audebert, J. B. et al * sample image * 1923

Recueil de planches de botanique de l'encyclopedie. V2 * Audebert, J. B. et al * sample image * 1923

Recueil de planches de botanique de l'encyclopedie. V3 * Audebert, J. B. et al * sample image * 1923

Recueil de planches de botanique de l'encyclopedie. V4 * Audebert, J. B. et al * sample image * 1923

Histoire des végétaux fossiles, ou, Recherches botaniques et géologiques sur les végétaux renfermés dans les diverses couches du globe * Brongniart, Adolphe et al * sample image * 1828

Wildflowers of Nova Scotia * Miller, Maria; Smith, Titus; Forrester, Alexander * sample image * 1840

Flore universelle * Letellier, Jean-Baptiste * sample image * 1848

Livre nouveau de fleurs tres-util pour l'art d'orfevrerie, et autres * Cochin, Nicolas * sample image * 1645

Das Blumenbuch * Koch, Rudolf, Kredel * sample image * 1930

Garden Flowers in Color * Foley, Daniel J. * sample image * 1943

The botanist's repository, for new and rare plants V 10 * Andrews, Henry Charles * sample image * 1797

Neue Bilderfolge 1920 * Foerster, Karl * sample image * 1920

Katalog 1916 * Foerster, Karl * sample image * 1916

Katalog 1915 * Foerster, Karl * sample image * 1915

Delectus florae et faunae Brasiliensis * Mikan, Johann Christian; Knapp, Johann et al * sample image * 1820

Sturm's Figures of plants V1 * Sturm, Jakob and Johann * sample image * 1798

August 29, 2018

3 Free eBooks – August 2018

August 29, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

So many great books available all the time…and free. Reading used to be a much more expensive activity!

2018 08 ebook1.jpg — Brongniart, Adolphe. ***Histoire des végétaux fossiles, ou, Recherches botaniques et géologiques sur les végétaux renfermés dans les diverses couches du globe***. A Paris et a Amsterdam: Chez G. Dufour et Ed. d’Ocagne. 1828. Available from Internet Archive here. This book includes many illustrations of plant fossils – imprints on rocks. It’s written in French – but the illustrations are the reason it’s worth a look. It was probably one of the first paleobotany books ever written. The author produced the book in his late 20s…must have had access to a sizable collection.

2018 08 ebook2.jpg — Karageorghis, Vassos. ***Ancient Art from Cyprus - The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.*** New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2000. Available from Internet Archive here. This is a more recent book (I am glad that many copyright holders that have out-of-print books are making them available this way). The color illustrations are wonderful. I particularly like utilitarian objects.

2018 08 ebook3.jpg — Aruz, Joan and Wallenfels, Ronald (editors). **Art of the first cities: the third millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus.** New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2003. Available from Internet Archive here. Another relatively recent book. Would you have guessed the necklace was from the 3rd millennium BC?

August 08, 2018

eBotanical Prints – July 2018

August 08, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Every time I think I have found most of the botanical print books in my favorite free eBook sites (like Internet Archive and HathiTrust Digital Library), I find some more. In July there were 20 new finds! I pick one image from each book – which often is a challenge. There are so many beautiful images to choose from. Sometimes I pick a familiar plant – like a jack-in-the pulpit or tulip poplar or cardinal flower. This month I couldn’t resist picking the watermelon since I was looking at the book about the time our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was including watermelon in our weekly share.

Enjoy the July Botanical print slide show. After the show is a list of the books with links to their locations and a sample image from each (which also was seen in the slide show).

A select collection of one hundred plates: consisting of the most beautiful, exotic and British flowers which blow in our English gardens * Edwards, John * sample image * 1775

The art of drawing and colouring from nature flowers, fruit, and shells: to which is added, correct directions for preparing the most brilliant colours for painting on velvet, with the mode of using them: also the new method of oriental tinting * Whittock, Nathaniel * sample image * 1829

Le Jardin fleuriste : journal général des progrés et des intérets horticoles et botaniques V1 * Lemaire, Charles Antoine * sample image * 1851

Le Jardin fleuriste : journal général des progrés et des intérets horticoles et botaniques V2 * Lemaire, Charles Antoine * sample image * 1852

Le Jardin fleuriste : journal général des progrés et des intérets horticoles et botaniques V3 * Lemaire, Charles Antoine * sample image * 1853

Le Jardin fleuriste : journal général des progrés et des intérets horticoles et botaniques V4 * Lemaire, Charles Antoine * sample image * 1854

Les cactées : histoire, patrie, organes de végétation, inflorescence, culture, etc * Lemaire, Charles Antoine * sample image * 1868

The ladies' flower-garden of ornamental greenhouse plants * Loudon, Jane Webb * sample image * 1848

The Floral Offering * Dumont, Henrietta * sample image * 1853

Wild Flowers * House, Homer Doliver * sample image * 1934

Floral belles from the green-house and garden * Badger, CM, Mrs. * sample image * 1867

Wild flowers drawn from nature * Badger, CM, Mrs. * sample image * 1859

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V1 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1821

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V2 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1822

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V3 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1821

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V4 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1827

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V5 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1827

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V6 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1828

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V7 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1829

Flore pittoresque et mdicale des Antilles, ou, Histoire naturelle des plantes usuelles des colonies franaises, anglaises, espagnoles et portugaises V8 * Descourtilz, Michel Etienne * sample image * 1829

July 31, 2018

4 Free eBooks – July 2018

July 31, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

Last month I have 4 eBooks to highlight and the same is true for this months – so I gave up and changed the title from 3 to 4. I had a lot of books to choose from…went for a bit of variety.

Yōfu gajō (v. 1). Kyōto-shi: Yamada Unsōdō. Published originally in the Meiji period, 1868-1912. Available from Smithsonian Libraries here. I liked the scenery in this volume – muted colors except for the red that pops. In the image below – do you think it is a Japanese maple? This was one of the last books in the collection of Japanese books available from this site; if you want to take a look at the whole collection – do so from the Japanese Illustrated Books from the Edo And Meiji Period page.

Andō, Hiroshige. Tokaido gojusantsugi. Published originally in the Edo Period, 1600-1868. Available from Smithsonian Libraries here. I couldn’t resist two images from this book – rain and snow. I think the snow is my favorite because of the pink….maybe sunrise?

Catlow, Agnes. Drops of water : their marvelous and beautiful inhabitants displayed by the microscope. London: Reeve and Benham. 1851. Available from Internet Archive here. The book was published just before or early in the Victorian surge in microscopy and became one of her most successful books. She was also one of the early science writers that wrote science books for young students.

The Craftsman. New York: United Crafts. A magazine founded and edited by the American furniture designer Gustav Stickley and published from October 1901 to December 1916. All issues are available from the University of Wisconsin Library’s Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture here. I am working my way through the issues a year at a time. I’m up to 1907 as of yesterday.

2018 0731 ebook4.jpg — There are lots of ideas that would work in modern situations….like hanging curtains far enough away from a window to allow chairs to be in front of the windows without having any curtains at all in the way of the light. I can imagine sitting in the chairs on a sunny winter day with sun streaming in…closing the curtains so that the area gets cozy warm…reading or writing on my laptop or creating a Zentangle.

July 05, 2018

3 Free eBooks – June 2018

July 05, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I picked 4 books instead of 3 in June because of the first two were about the same place – New York – and I thought they were interesting history.

Wittemann, Adolph. Select New York. New York: A. Wittemann. 1889. Available from Internet Archive here. This book includes photographs of New York and almost all of them include a tangle of electrical wires…at the beginning of the electrification of the city when there was a lot of chaos and little standardization.

Wittmann, Adolph. New York: An Album of Photographs. Brooklyn: Wittemann. 1900. Available from Internet Archive here. The photographs have been tinted and there are no wires at all. Were the electrical conduits underground by 1900 or did the publisher manage to take them out of the photographs?

2018 07 ebook3.jpg — Lear, Edward. ***Illustrations of the family of Psittacidae, or parrots: the greater part of them species hitherto unfigured, containing forty-two lithographic plates, drawn from life, and on stone.*** London, England: E. Lear. 1832. Available from the Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture here. I was surprised to find this book of parrot illustrations…but the same man that wrote the poem ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’ I remember from my childhood!

2018 07 ebook4.jpg — Wantanabe, Seitei. ***Seitei kachō gafu v. 2.*** Okura Mogabe, Toyko, Meije 23. 1890. Available from Smithsonian Libraries here. I enjoyed the Japanese artwork…like the type of nature photography I like to do. I wanted to be in the place seeing a bird walking in a wetland – perhaps it was early morning.

June 18, 2018

eBotanical Prints – May 2018

June 18, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

I am allowing myself one botanical print post in the main blog of this site each month. This is it for May – the books that contained botanical images that I read during the month. I’ll post about individual books in the eBotanicalPrints part of the site: Botanical blog. Also take a look at the Botanical eBooks list to find links to over 1,400 eBooks available free from various sources.

I read 24 botanical eBooks in May. It is always a little surprising that there are so many that I haven’t found before. In May I discovered some recent garden magazines that were made available via Internet Archive. They have great photography of cultivated plants and carry on the tradition of spreading the news about new varieties and planting designs as the books in the 1800s popularized plants from around the world.

The links to the books are below the sample image slide show.