Bladeren van de gelobde maanvaren en twee soorten addertongvarens before 1877

This photogravure of ferns was made by Sydney Courtauld, likely in England, sometime in the late nineteenth century. It's a beautiful example of the way that scientific illustration was evolving under the influence of new photographic technologies, but it's also a relic of Britain’s vast colonial projects. By the Victorian era, botany was a popular field of study both for pleasure and for profit. Advances in the printing press, such as photogravure, meant that images of plants could be widely disseminated. In Britain, many people turned to the pursuit of botany as a signifier of social status. But it was also through the circulation of images and specimens that institutions like Kew Gardens were able to consolidate scientific knowledge, and to exploit the natural resources of colonized lands. In order to better understand this work, one might want to consult institutional archives, such as those of the Royal Botanic Gardens. We might also look into the artist’s affiliations, and the social networks in which they circulated.