Peperomia pellucida 1738

Jan Wandelaar made this botanical illustration of Peperomia pellucida, likely in the first half of the 18th century, using etching. Wandelaar lived during the height of the Dutch colonial era. Botanical art like this, while seemingly objective, played a role in the colonial project. These images documented and classified flora, often from colonized lands, contributing to a European understanding and exploitation of natural resources. The act of naming and categorizing plants was itself an assertion of control. Consider the social context: who had access to this knowledge, and for what purposes was it used? The clean, precise lines of the etching reflect a desire for scientific accuracy, but they also distance us from the plant's lived reality. How might our understanding of this image shift if we knew more about the plant's significance to the indigenous communities where it originated? How does this image reflect the power dynamics inherent in the collection and documentation of botanical knowledge?